LIBRARY OF.CONGRESS. 

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CNFTEU STATi:S OF AMERICA. 



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m, EISIUM 11 SIUGE. 



A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



ENSILAGE OF FODDER CORN. 



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MANLY MILES, M. D., F. R. M. S 



JUl 271889; 

NEW YORK 

OEANGE JUDD COMPANY, 

751 BROADWAY, 

1889. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 

ORANGE JUDD CO., 
In the Oflce of the Librarian of Congress at "Washington. 



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PEEFACE. 

The literature of ensilage consists, in the main, of 
the experience of individuals under a great variety of 
conditions, and the inferences or impressions derived 
from a limited range of observation, as recorded in Ag- 
ricultural reports and papers. 

In experiments relating to the chemistry of ensilage, 
the factors of dominant interest, so far as the cause of 
the changes taking place in the fodder are concerned, 
have been almost entirely neglected, and but little real 
progress has been made in our knowledge of the econo- 
mies of the silo. 

From a practical standpoint it seems desirable, at the 
present time, to collate the well known facts in regard 
to the practice of ensilage and bring them into some 
consistent relation with definite principles, in harmony 
with the latest developments of science. 

This will not only aid the farmer in deciding upon the 
best methods of practice, but it will clear the way for 
needed scientific investigations, by suggesting and defin- 
ing the lines of research that may be profitably followed 
to obtain a consistent explanation of the complex changes 
taking place in the ensilage of fodder. 

Lansii^g, Michigan, June, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



7?»P.-7 

CHAPTER I. 

First Principles Page 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Historical. Silos for Storing Grain 9 

CHAPTER III. 

Historical. Silos for Preserving Green Fodder 18 

CHAPTER rV. 
Fermentation 39 

CHAPTER V. 
The Silo 62 

CHAPTER VI, 
How to Build a Silo 67 

CHAPTER VII. 
Fodder Crops for Ensilage ' 77 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Filling The Silo 85 

CHAPTER IX. 
Ensilage and Farm Economy 92 



(5) 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

PIEST PRINCIPLES. 

The preservation of green fodder for winter feeding 
has for many years engaged the attention of practical 
men as a matter of great economic interest, and the 
results obtained in the many attempts to solve the prob- 
lem mark a gradual process of development which must 
be recognized as a phase of the law of evolution, which is 
now generally accepted as an essential factor of human 
progress. 

In his " History of the Inductive Sciences," Whewell 
emphasizes the fact that *' in all cases the arts are prior 
to the related sciences," and that '^ powers of practical 
skill" — "prepare the way for theoretical views and sci- 
entific discoveries." 

The history of the development of the best practice m 
the preservation of green fodder furnishes a good illus- 
tration of the correctness of Whewell's views in regard 
to the relations of Art and Science, as we find that the 
progress of practical discovery has always been in ad- 
vance of the theoretical or scientific explanation of the 
results obtained, and, moreover, it must even be admit- 
ted that the indiscreet application of theories in science, 
based on imperfect data and hasty generalizations, have 
a tendency to retard the real progress of practical meth- 
ods, by directing attention to unimportant details. 

For at least half a century green fodder has been suc- 
cessfully preserved in silos, and yet we knew nothing of 
the causes of fermentation until Pasteur established the 
true theory of the process by his masterly investigations, 
from 1857 to 1869, and proved conclusively that living 
organisms were the active and essential factors of fer- 



8 SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

mentation and putrefaction, and eyen then the new the- 
ory was reluctantly adopted by chemists. 

It has been difficult to obtain a general recognition of 
the fact that the changes taking place in green fodder, 
when preserved in silos, are essentially, and perhaps 
almost exclusively, the result of biological processes, and 
that the observed chemical transformations are but inci- 
dents of physiological activities and therefore to a greater 
or less extent independent of the ordinary laws of com- 
bination which obtain in inorganic chemistry. 

From what is now known of the phenomena of fer- 
mentation it is evident that biological lines of investiga- 
tion must be followed to place the science of ensilage 
fully abreast of the best practice. 

The terms "silo" and "ensilage" were familiarly 
used in the French agricultural papers as early as 1870, 
while the English papers of the same date referred to 
the French experiments as the "pitting" or "potting" 
of green fodder. In a communication to the "Country 
Gentleman" of October 5th, 1876, giving an outline of 
the discovery and progress of ensilage in France, and of 
my own experiments in 1875, I made use of the word 
silo, and suggested the adoption of the word ensilage, in 
the absence of any English equivalent. Since that time 
these terms have been in common use in this country, 
but as the word ensilage is used in a double sense, one of 
its meanings may be best expressed by the word silage, 
which has been introduced in England with advantage 
within the past four or five years. 

For the convenience of those not familiar with these 
terms, the following definitions may be given as repre- 
senting the present nomenclature of the subject. 

Silo: a closed pit, or reservoir, in which either dry 
grain, or green fodder is preserved. 

Silage: the green fodder preserved in a silo. 

Ensilage: the process of preserving green fodder in 
silos. 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 9 

Any green crops may be preserved in silos; in Eng- 
land, meadow grass, clover, tares, rye, oats, and rye- 
grass, are the leading crops ensilaged, while in this 
country, the ensilage of fodder corn has received a larger 
share of attention. 

In studying the history of ensilage it will be necessary 
to keep in mind the two leading purposes to which silos 
are adapted. Among the ancients they were only used 
for storing and preserving dry grain; while in modern 
practice they are used almost exclusively for preserving 
green fodder. 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORICAL. — SILOS FOR STORING GRAIN. 

From the earliest times of which we have any record, 
silos have been used for the storage of grain, either 
threshed, or in the ear. According to the best author- 
ity, the word silo is derived from the Greek, and intro- 
duced to France from Spain. * 

Pliny says, 'Hhe best plan, however, of preserving 
grain, is to lay it up in trenches, called ' Siri,' as they do 
in Cappadocia, Thracia, Spain, and at in Af- 
rica. Particular care is taked to dig these trenches in a 
dry soil, and a layer of chaff is then placed at the bot- 
tom; the grain, too, is always stored in the ear. In this 
case, if no air is allowed to penetrate to the corn, we may 
rest assured that no noxious insects will ever breed in it. 
Varro says, that wheat, if thus stored, will keep as long 

*E. Littre, " Dictionnaire de la langue Francaise." La Chatre, " Noveau Dic- 
tionnalre Universal." See also Jenkins' "Practice of Ensilage," Jour. Roy. Ag. 
Soc. 1884, pp. 127-8. 



10 



SILOS, "ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 



as fifty years, and millet a hundred; and lie assures us 
that beans and other leguminous grain, if put away in 
oil jars with a covering of ashes, will keep for a great 
length of time. He makes a statement, also, to the 
effect that some beans were preserved in a cavern in 




FIG. 1. Be7ii Hassan. 

Ambracia, from the time of King Pyrrhus until the 
piratical war of Pompeius Magnus, a period of about 
two hundred and twenty years."* 




a 6 c 

FIG. 2. Thebes. 

In ancient Egypt, according to Wilkinson, ^'The 
granaries were also apart from the house, and were en- 

*Nat. Hist. Vol. IV, p. 106. Bolin's Classical Library. Foure Bookes of Hus- 
baudrie, by Conradus Heresbachius, 1586, p. 48. 



SILOS, E.N^SILAGE AND SILAGE. 11 

closed with a separate wall ; and some of the rooms in 
which they housed the grain appear to have had vaulted 
roofs. These were filled through an aperture near the 
top, to which the men ascended by steps, and the grain 
when wanted was taken out from a door at the base."* 

These storage rooms were, in fact, silos of masonry 
above ground, and a marked improvement on the rude 
trenches mentioned by Pliny. 

In an interesting article on Ensilage by Mr. H. W. 
Jenkins, Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England, it is stated that the practice of storing grain in 
silos was brought by the Moors into Spain ; but the state- 
ment of Pliny given above, in connection with other his- 
torical data, would lead to the more probable supposi- 
tion that the Romans introduced the system into Spain, 
as well as other grain-growing provinces of the Empire, 
and that if the Moors brought silos into notice for the 
preservation of grain, it was but a revival of an old 
Roman practice, f 

From the many valuable suggestions in regard to the 
storing of grain contained in the paper by Mr. Jenkins, 
we quote as follows: " In France, the system of ensilage 
was originally imported from Spain, with a view to the 
preservation of cereals from years of plenty to years of 
scarcity. It is recorded by Mons. L. Doyere, that the 
proprietor of the estate of Palerne, in the Puy de Dome, 
put his corn, harvested in 1820 and 1821, in silos con- 
structed for the purpose, and kept the grain in them 
until the end of 1828, when, prices having risen to 

*"The Ancient Egyptians," by Wilkinson, Vol. 1, pp. 31-32, from whicli Figs. 
1 and 2 are copied. 

tin a foot-note to Mr. Jenkins' paper (1. c. p. 128), a quotation is given from a 
French work published in 1804, as follows: "In 1707 there was discovered in 
the citadel of Metzalarge quantity of corn (grain) , placed there in 1528, in one 
of the underground rooms, where it was so well preserved that the bread which 
was made from it, two centuries after it had been placed there was found very 
good. There exists now (1S04), at Ardres, department of the Pas de Calais, one 
of these underground plaoes made by the Romans." 



12 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

double their figure of seven years before, he opened the 
silos and found the grain practically uninjured. It is 
true that a small layer at the top, immediately under 
the straw which separated the grain from the hermet- 
ically sealed cover, was a little mouldy, and the silo con- 
tained a quantity of carbonic-acid gas when first opened. 
But the bulk of the grain was perfectly preserved, and 
the proprietor of the estate was so satisfied with his suc- 
cess that he gave instructions for other silos to be built. 
Unfortunately, his death shortly afterwards put an end 
to his projects. 

''So far as I can judge, the first Frenchman to call 
attention to this method of preserving corn was 
Count de Lasteyrie, who published a work on the sub- 
ject in 1819. Then a trial of the system was made by 
M. Ternaux, at Saint Ouen, and the 'Societe royal et 
centrale d' Agriculture de France ' appointed a commis- 
sion to report on the experiment. This report, pre- 
sented in December, 1826, was eminently unfavorable, 
and for a considerable time prevented any further at- 
tempts at the ensilage of corn. M. Doydre explains that 
the conditions under which the experiment was made 
were so extremely unfavorable, that failure was a fore- 
gone conclusion. He mentions specially a very porous 
sub-soil close to the Seine, and subject to infiltrations 
of water from it, no attempt to render the walls of the 
silo water-tight, and so forth. Therefore one need not 
wonder that the corn was not well preserved. 

" After the publication of M. Doyere's report on the 
Alucite of wheat, he was commissioned by the French 
government to investigate more closely the question of 
the preservation of cereals in silos, more especially in 
Spain. His report was presented to the French Acad- 
emy of Sciences at the end of 1855, and published the 
following year as a pamphlet. Without stopping to 
analyze this report, I think it desirable to give the fol- 



SILOS, ElSrSILAGE AXD SILAGE. 13 

lowing translation of an article from a French Encyclo- 
pedia,* which embodies most of M. Doyere's con- 
clusions". 

" The Preservation of Cereals. This question inter- 
ests in the highest degree every civilized country. It is 
important for the welfare of nations that, when the har- 
vest is superabundant and the corn at a low price, a part 
of the produce in excess should be preserved, so as to 
circulate the same when a bad harvest arrives unexpect- 
edly, and the price of corn tends to rise above the ordi- 
nary value. But two natural obstacles exist to the pres- 
ervation of corn. They are (1) the dampness, which 
causes it to ferment, and (2) the insects which destroy 
considerable quantities of it. 

*'In Egypt, where it never rains, and in other coun- 
tries where rains are rare, the problem is easily solved by 
the employment of the 'silo.' The 'silo' is simply an 
excavation, the sides of which are lined with masonry, 
then relined, as also is the bottom, with a layer of very 
dry straw. After the pit or silo has been filled, the 
grain is covered with straw, and the silo is closed by 
means of an arch in masonry, in which is placed an 
opening with a movable lid, so that one can take out the 
grain from it as needed. 

"The grain is preserved in the silo, without injury, 
for an indefinite time. But in France, as in all northern 
countries, the ensilage of the grain has not succeeded, 
and this is attributed to the humidity of the soil, which 
penetrates to the interior of even the best-constructed 
silos. Then it has been observed that corn, properly 
ventilated, is less liable to become heated in the gran- 
aries, than that left alone. It was believed that the 
problem had been solved by the airing and ventilation 
of the grain. 

* Dictionnalre Francaise Illustr^ et ency'l. Universelle, par B. Dupiney de Vore- 
pierre, Paris: Michael-Levy freres, 1867, T. l, p. 503. 



14 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

*' Moving granaries, and granaries with ventilators, 
were suggested, but they are all extremely expensive, and 
they do not safely prevent fermentation. They also pre- 
sent no obstable to the development of insects. The 
success that has been obtained by using these means 
appears to be simply due to the dryness of the wheat. 
But, as Doyere has asserted, dry grain can be preserved 
for a certain time by any means. But it is not the same 
with wet grain, — that is to say, grain containing more 
than 16 per cent, of water, as the greater part of French 
corn does. ' I found,' says Doydre, ' that corn containing 
21 per cent, of water, furnishes, at Q^° Fahr. (30° cen- 
tigrade), 120 milligrammes of carbonic acid per day and 
per kilogramme (about 2 1-2 lbs. English), in a state of 
rest ; and about 17 milligrammes per hour under the 
influence of a constant current of air, which latter 
amount would make 408 milligrammes per day. Ven- 
tilation, therefore, trebles the amount of decomposition, 
of which carbonic acid is one of the products. 

''The last of these losses is enormous, for it represents 
not less than 2 1-2 per cent, of dry matter destroyed 
each month, owing to alcoholic fermentation. It is 
probable that it would not be continued indefinitely to 
the same extent as it huppens for several hours ; but it 
is renewed with the same energy during the whole time 
of an intermittent ventilation. Otherwise, the loss of 
120 milligrammes of carbonic acid per day, which hardly 
requires any renewal of air, suffices to repel the hope of 
a preservation of long duration, for it represents a de- 
struction of dry matter amounting to 7 per 1000 per 
month. 

" ' This is not only the loss in weight, for the loss in 
quality which results from the formation of sour and 
rank products is incomparably more to be feared. Fi- 
nally, as the loss takes place in a temperature relatively 
low, that of 68° Fahr., it would not only increase ;with 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 16 

the temperature, but even much more rapidly. There- 
fore when the grain is wet, the airing produces an effect 
very much opposed to that whicli is commonly looked 
for.' The results of the experiences of Doyere show that, 
in the grain containing less than 16 per cent, of water, 
there is only produced an alcoholic fermentation, exces- 
sively weak, without developing odor or taste, and only 
to be perceived by the most delicate processes of chem- 
istry. 

" In other cases even this fermentation is stopped in 
closed vessels. After the oxygen of the air, which is its 
primitive cause, has completely disappeared, no other 
acid but carbonic acid is formed ; the starch and gluten 
undergo no change. Towards 16 per cent, of humidity, 
or a little beyond it, the alteration in the grain begins 
to show itself, in the course of time, in the closed ves- 
sels. Its relative activity in corn of various degrees of 
humidity, increases with the proportion of water, but 
much more rapidly than the humidity itself. It is due 
to fermentation, called by the chemists lactic, butyric, 
and gaseous. Consequently, whatever may be the means 
employed, it is impossible to preserve grain wet, as it 
generally is in France. The excessive humidity of corn 
in our country ought not, however, to be attributed 
only to the climate, and climatic influences, in which 
the grain has been harvested. Agricultural customs 
have much to do with it. In the greater part of France 
the wheat is cut half green, and is hastily put into the 
granary, or made into ricks, where it immediately begins 
to ferment. If, as we think, the observations of Doyere 
are correct, it is evident that the corn intended to be 
preserved must be dried, in the first instance, if it con- 
tains 16 per cent, of humidity, or more. As to the 
place where it is best to keep it, the silo appears to us 
infinitely preferable to the granary, for the latter is open 
to the outer air, and exposed to all variations of tem- 
perature. 



16 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

''Now, air introduces a means of fermentation of the 
grain, as well as a means of life for insects, while yaria- 
tions of temperature favor the chemical phenomena of 
which the grain becomes the seat. 

" The underground silo in masonry offers this great 
advantage over the granary : that of preserving a low and 
constant temperature ; but it is not completely inacces- 
sible to the air, and it is impossible to render it imper- 
vious to humidity. As a set-off to these two last incon- 
veniences, Doyere proposed employing metals. His 
system of construction consisted of some very thin sheets 
of iron, preserved exteriorly from oxydation by an im- 
permeable covering, and enveloped in concrete, which 
sustains the whole weight. The sheet of iron, he says, 
only plays the part of an impervious and indestructible 
varnish. It offers, besides, the advantage of supplying 
holes which can be shut up hermetically. Finally, a 
silo of 500 hectolitres (1376 bu.), constructed according 
to this system, at Paris, with a sheet of iron of a mean 
thickness of 3 millimetres, and made at a cost of 2 1. the 
cwt. (1 fr. per kilo), has only cost, including the as- 
phalte covering, 2250 francs (90 1.), or 4 fr. 50c. per 
hectolitre (1 s. 4 d. per bushel). Therefore it is seen 
that, instead of being led into error by ruinous experi- 
ments on the faith of theories, either preconceived, or 
else deduced from facts wrongly interpreted, it is simply 
a question of appropriating for our climate the means 
consecrated by the experience of centuries in all warm 
countries." * 

Notwithstanding the defective theoretical views, which 
were in accord with the science of the time, these rec- 
ords of investigations, made more than thirty years ago, 
are of interest as showing the value of exact experi- 
mental methods in their relations to practice. As an 
outcome of these studies of the essential conditions for 

* Jour. Koy. Agr'l. Soc. 1884 pp. 129-132. 



SILOS, E2S-SILAGB AND SILAGE. 17 

the preservation of grain, silos are used on an extensive 
scale, for the storage of grain, by the Paris Omnibus 
Company, ''some silos being below ground and some 
above."* 

In the evolution of the silo, for storing grain, from 
the rude trenches mentioned by Pliny, to the permanent 
structures of masonry of the Egyptians, and the more 
perfect construction required in the comparatively hu- 
mid climate of France, there was undoubtedly a great 
variety of forms developed by experience to adapt the 
details of practice to the conditions of each locality ; 
and it is probable that the system had a wider geograph- 
ical range than our imperfect history of agricultural 
practice seems to indicate. At the time of the discov- 
ery of America by Columbus, Indian corn was stored 
in pits by the natives, and the tribes beyond the Missis- 
sippi still continue the practice. 

It is, perhaps, reasonable to assume that it was a com- 
mon method of storing grain, among savage and migra- 
tory tribes, to conceal it from their enemies and to pro- 
vide against seasons of scarcity. 

* Jenkins, 1. c. p. 129, who refers to a " Report by M Muntz, ' Etudes sur la con- 
servation des grains,' published In the 'Annals de I'Institut National Agrono- 
mique ' No. 4 of 1878-79, pubUshed in 1881." 

2 



18 SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

CHAPTEE III. 

HISTORICAL. — SILOS TOR PRESERVIN^G GREEN" FODDER. 

The preservation of green fodder in closed chambers 
or pits was practiced in Europe previous to the begin- 
ning of the present century, but the early history of the 
process is involved in obscurity. 

In his '^ Observations made in Italy on the use of 
leaves in feeding cattle," publislied in 1786, Prof. John 
Symonds, of the University of Cambridge, says : 
"Among tlie various kinds of winter food provided for 
cattle in Italy, the use of leaves is not the least consider- 
able. * * * ;7^o preserve tJie freshness and verdure 
of the leaves requires a great deal of attention. To 
effect this they gather them about the end of September, 
or the beginning of October, at the time of day when 
the heats are most piercing ; and spread tbem very thin 
upon a pavement abroad, where they suffer them to lie 
three or four hours ; after which they put them into 
wooden casks, and press them down as closely as possi- 
ble, and cover them entirely with sand. The very 
moment after they have taken out the quantity which is 
v/anted, they stop up the casks, lest the leaves should 
be exposed to the air ; by which method they are ena- 
bled to keep them both fresh and tender during the 
whole winter. It is customary for the peasants in some 
parts of Italy to hury them in a pit, and to cover them 
with straw, upon which they lay either clay or sand ; 
and both are equally calculated to answer the purpose." * 

Green fodder was preserved in silos quite a number of 
years ago in Germany and Hungary, in the form of 
"sour," or "brown" hay, but we have no record of the 

♦Young's Annals of Agriculture (1786), Vol. l,pp. 207-9, 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 19 

origin of the process, or of the conditions which led to 
its development. Although frequently mentioned by 
writers on continental agriculture, the first detailed 
description of the process, by an English author, so far 
as I can learn, was given by Prof. J. F. W. Johnston, 
in a paper " On the Feeding Qualities of the Natural 
and Artificial Grasses in different states of dryness," 
published in the "Transactions of the Highland and 
Agricultural Society of Scotland," for 1843-45.* 

As Prof. Johnston's paper contains matter of general 
interest, that is not accessible to many of our readers, 
we make the following extended quotation. The first 
paragraph, as will be seen, may well be applied to our 
present knowledge of the economy of green feed. 

" Much knowledge remains yet to be acquired in ref- 
erence to the most economical mode of using green crops 
as food for cattle. It is true that there exists much val- 
uable information floating among intelligent practical 
men, but when the unprejudiced inquirer begins to col- 
lect, with the Tiew of fixing this floating knowledge, he 
meets with opinions so contradictory, even from men of 
equal intelligence and skill, that he must be well ac- 
quainted with those causes which affect the- results of 
agricultural operations in different localities, before he 
can hope to approach the truth, or to extract anything 
like general principles from the testimony of practical 
men alone. 

* From a foot note to Prof. Johnston's paper it appears that the original source 
of information, in part, at least, was " Verhandlung des Baltischen Vereins fur 
Forderung dei Landwirthschafc. Greifswald, 1842, p. 38." An abstract of Prof. 
Johnston's description of the sour hay process was published in Stephens' 
" Book of the farm," 1844, Vol. 3, p. 978. In H. R. Stevens' book on " Ensilage," 
1881, p. 20, Prof. J. M. M'Bryde, in a notice of the sour hay of Germany says, 
" This process is fully described by Grieswald (1842) ; and a translation of the 
passage is given in Stevens' (sic.) large work, ' The Farmer's Guide,' which 
appeared in 1851," and "the extract in full" then follows. The extract here 
given is a reprint of the abstract of Prof. Johnston's article as printed in 
Stephens' Book of the Farm, above noticed, and Greifswald is a small town 
near the Baltic, in the province of Pomerania, where the " Transactions of the 
Baltic Society for the promotion of Agriculture," the original authority, were 
published. 



20 SILOS, El^SILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

" The opinions of practical agriculturists are derived in 
general from their own experience, and from that of 
their neighbors, in a limited district only. In distant 
parts of the country, we know that these opinions are 
often quite opposed to each other ; yet the phenomena 
from which the cultivators of each province have deduced 
their opposite opinions, are the natural results of the 
same general laws. It is these laws which the philo- 
sophical agriculturist seeks to discover. 

" The above observations apply, among other topics, to 
the opinions held in different localities in regard to the 
relative feeding properties of the natural and artificial 
grasses in their green and dry states, — their relative 
value when made into hay after one or another method, 
and when used at one or another season of the year. 
* * * But it is also said, — and I believe, as a gen- 
eral principle, is also conceded, — that the same weight 
of the same grass will go further in the green state than 
when it is made into hay. 

" But there appears to be a great, and so far as I am 
capable of judging, a well-founded difference in regard 
to the amount of nourishment lost by the act of drying. 
By some it is stated to amount to one-half ; a ton of 
green rye-grass or clover going as far as two tons when 
made into hay. This proportion cannot be general ; 
but since differences so great may exist, according to the 
evidence of practical men, it becomes a matter of inter- 
est to inquire how this difference arises, and if by any 
means it can be avoided or diminished." * * * 
" When the soft young shoots of the dog-rose, the bram- 
ble, or the hawthorn, or the stem of the young cab- 
bage, are cut off and peeled, they are found to be soft 
and eatable, and, like the heart of the young turnip, 
are readily digestible ; but let a month or two elapse, 
and these shoots become woody and unfit for mastica- 
tion, and, when taken into the stomach, pass through 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 21 

the intestines of most animals in a great measure un- 
changed. Thus, animals which thrive on the young 
shoots of early spring, can with difficulty sustain them- ' 
selves on the more matured branches of the advancing 
summer. The reason of this difference is, that the 
starch and gum, and similar soluble and digestible sub- 
stances of which the young shoot consists, are gradually 
changed into the insoluble and, in general, almost indi- 
gestible woody fibre of which the stem and branches of 
the mature plant are in great part composed. 

"When green grass or clover, approaching to maturity, 
is first cut down, it contains a considerable proportion 
of starch, sugar, and gum, still unchanged into woody 
fibre, as it would mostly be were the plant allowed to 
become fully ripe. But when left to dry in the open 
air, the circulation proceeds to a certain extent, and, 
under the influence of light, woody fibre continues to be 
formed in the upper part of each stem, until it becomes 
completely dry. It may even be a matter of doubt 
whether this process of change does not often proceed 
after the hay has been carried off the field and stacked. 

" The effect of this change will obviously be to render 
the dry hay less digestible, on the whole, and, conse- 
quently, less valuable as food, than the green grass from 
which it was prepared. 

"Again, we know that by drying, many very digestible 
and nourishing substances become less soluble, and con- ' 
sequently, more difficult of digestion. The stomach of 
a growing animal cannot afford the time necessary to 
the complete digestion of such dry substances, and 
hence a larger portion of the really nutritive matter of 
their food is rejected in the drojjpings of animals which 
are fed upon them. How much of dry corn escapes, 
half digested, from the stomach of the horse, — how 
much, probably, of the animal matter of the bones it 
eats, from the stomach of the dog, — which either of 



22 SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

these animals would have been able fully to digest, and 
to work up for its own sustenance, had the food been 
presented to it in a less hard and solid state ! So it 
must be, to a certain extent, with dried hay. "What 
was easily soluble and digestible in the green, has, with- 
out underooing any chemical change, become less solu- 
ble and more tardily digestible in the dry, and hence a 
second reason why the hay should afford less nourish- 
ment than the grass from which it is made. 

" The knowledge of these two causes of deterioration 
suggests the kind of inquiries which the practical farmer 
ought to make, and the kind of practice he ought to 
adopt, in order to retain as much as possible of the feed- 
ing property of his grass and clover crops, and thus to 
turn to the greatest advantage the annual produce of 
his land. Thus he may ask — Is it possible to preserve 
these crops in their moist state ? Can I cut them down 
and so preserve them undried, as to obtain from them, 
for my cattle, an amount of food more nearly equal to 
that which the fresh cut grass is capable of affording ? 
A method has lately been tried in Germany, which, by 
the aid of a little salt, seems in a great measure to attain 
this object. 

" Pits are dug in the earth, from ten to twelve feet 
square and as many deep ; these are lined with wood, 
and puddled below and at the sides with clay. They 
may obviously be made of any other suitable dimensions, 
and may be lined with brick. 

" Into this pit the green crop of grass, clover, or 
vetches, is put just as it is cut. Four or five cwts. are 
introduced at a time, sprinkled with salt, at the rate of 
one pound to each cwt., and, if the weather, and con- 
sequently the crop, be dry, two or three quarts of water 
to each cwt. should be sprinkled over every successive 
layer. It is only when rain or a heavy dew has fallen 
before mowing that, in East Prussia, this watering is 
considered unnecessary. 



SlLOS, EKSILAGE ANJ> SILAGE. 23 

"Much, however, must depend on the succulency of 
the crop. Each layer of four or five cwts. is spread 
evenly over the bottom, is well trodden down by five or 
six men, and, especially, is rammed as close as possible 
at the sides with the aid of wooden rammers. 

" Each layer is thus salted, watered if necessary, and 
trodden in succession till the pit is perfectly full. 
Much depends upon the perfect treading of the grass 
for the exclusion of the air, and, therefore, for a pit of 
ten feet square, four cwts. are as much as ought to be 
put in for each layer. Between each layer may be 
strewed a few handfuls of straw, in order that, when 
emptying the pit afterwards for the daily consumption 
of the stock, the quantity taken out may be known 
without the necessity of a second weighing. 

"When the pit is full, the topmost layer is well salted, 
the whole then covered with boards, or a well-fitting lid, 
and upon these a foot and a half of earth, for the more 
perfect exclusion of the air. A pit ten feet square and 
as many deep will hold about five tons of fresh grass, 
and each pit should, if possible, be filled in not less than 
two days. - 

"When covered up the grass speedily heats and fer- 
ments, and after the lapse of about six days, when the 
fermentation has ceased, the whole has sunk to about 
one-half of its original bulk. 

** The lid must be examined during the fermentation, 
at least once a day, and the earth, as it sinks, carefully 
replaced wherever crevices appear ; for, if the air be 
allowed to gain admission, a putrefactive fermentation 
will come on, which will impart a disagreeable odor to 
the fodder, though it will not prevent it from being 
eaten by the stock. When the first fermentation has 
ceased, the lid may be removed, the pit again filled with 
fresh grass, trodden in, salted, and covered as before. 



24 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

A pit ten feet square, when perfectly full of this fer- 
mented grass, will contain nearly ten tons — equal to 
two or three tons of dry hay. 

" The grass, Avhen thus fermented, has the appearance 
of having ieen ioiled, has a sharp acid taste, and is 
greedily eaten by the cattle. The pits should be kept 
covered for, at least, six weeks, after which they may be 
opened successively as they are required, and may be 
kept open till their contents are consumed by the cattle 
without suffering any injury from the contact of the 
atmospheric air. Of the feeding qualities of this salted 
fodder, one experimenter says that, by giving only 
twenty pounds a day of it along with chopped straw, he 
kept his cows in condition during the whole winter. 
His green ci'op was vetches, and the twenty pounds of 
salted fodder were equal to, or would have made, less 
than four pounds of vetch hay. 

"Another experimenter says that, on a daily allowance 
of twenty-eight pounds of his salted fodder, his cows 
gave a rich and well-tasted milk. 

" This method of salting and preserving green crops in 
their moist state appears to afford an answer to the first 
question which is naturally asked when we are told of 
the difference in feeding value between the same grass 
when first cut and when dried into hay. It is probable 
that the fermentation which takes place in the pit may 
in some degree diminish the nutritive value of the grass, 
but the likelihood which exists that a very large propor- 
tion of this value will be retained renders the method 
of salting in this manner well worthy the attention of 
our more skillful agriculturists. It would greatly ben- 
efit both theory and practice also, were careful series of 
experiments to be made in different localities, with the 
view of determining the true relative value in feeding 
stock of the grass of the same field when newly cut, and 



SILOS, EHSILAGE AND SILAGE. 25 

when salted and preserved in the manner above 
described. " * 

In connection with this paper by Prof. Johnston, 
and from its relations to the general system of ensilage 
and the economy of cattle foods, the experience of Mr. 
Samuel Jonas, of Saffron Walden, England, in the pres- 
ervation and feeding of fermented straw chaff, reported 
to the Secretary of the Eoyal Agricultural Society in 
1869, and published in 1870, f is of particular interest. 
He says, ''Myself and sons have carried out this system 
of storing old chaff to such an extent that we are using 
on our occupation (which consists of 4,200 acres of 
arable land), seven jaarns which were previously used 
for storing corn." 

He uses a 12-horse power engine, which threshes, 
cleans and sacks the grain, ready for market, and cuts 
the straw into chaff. The chaff is carefully packed in 
the barns, and mixed with tares, or rye, cut green and 
chaffed, in the proportions of about one cwt. of green 
chaff to one ton of straw chaff, and one bu. of salt. 
This is done in the spring or summer, and the chaff is 
not used until October and the winter months. In con- 
clusion, Mr. Jonas says, "lam not stating. that straw 
chaff can be rendered as valuable as hay chaff for feed- 
ing purposes, but that it may, by judicious management, 
be made a very important auxiliaij to the production of 
meat food for our fast increasing population. I agree 
with Prof. Voelcker, that the straw used for chaff should 
be wheat and oat, for these may be cut without loss in a 
far greener state than is generally done." 

Dr. Augustus Voelcker made an analysis of this fer- 
mented straw chaff, and compares the same with "a, 



♦Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, July, 
1843,-March, 1845, pp. 57-61. 

t Jour. Roy. Agr'l Society, 1870, p. 119. 



36 



Silos, ensilage anb silage. 



sample of well-harvested wheat straw which was neither 
under nor over ripe,"* with the following results : 



FERMENTED WHEAT STRAW. 

STKAW (;haff. 



Moisture, 

Oil and fatty matter, 

f Albuminous compounds, 

Sugar, gum, and other organic com- 
pounds soluble in water, 

Digestible fibre 

Woody fibre (cellulose), 

Mineral matter (ash), 




.07 



.47 



tContaining nitrogen, 

In his remarks on these analyses Dr. Voelcker says, 
"The addition of the green stuff causes the straw-chaff 
mixture to heat ; the volatile and odoriferous principles 
produced by the fermentation are retained by the straw- 
chaff, itself undergoing a kind of slow cooking process, 
and they impregnate the whole mass with an extremely 
pleasant flavour, scarcely inferior to that vvliich charac- 
terizes well made hay. " * * * Ti^e fermentation 

to which the straw is submitted in Mr. Jonas' plan thus 
has tbe effect of rendering the hard and dry substance 
which constitutes the bulk of the straw more soluble 
and digestible than it is in its natural condition. But 
useful as is the effect of the slow and moist heat, 
developed in the mixture of straw-chaff with green rye 
or cut tares, no doubt is in rendering the fibre of the 
chaff more digestible, this is not the only recommenda- 
tion of Mr. Jonas' admirable plan of preparing a really 
very nutritive and important food for stock. 

"Another recommendation is the extremely delicate 
flavour and the palatable condition which is conferred 
upon the straw in the process of fermentation. 

"The prepared straw-chaff, kindly sent by Mr. Jonas, 
had all the agreeable smell which characterizes good green 
meadow-hay, and a hot infusion with hot water produced 



* Jour. Roy. Agr'l Society, 1871, p. 85. 



STLOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 27 

a liquid which could liardly be distinguished from hay- 
tea. * * * By Mr. Jonas' plan straw-chaif is not 
merely made more palatable, but, as it is mixed with a 
little green food, it undergoes a slow cooking process, 
and becomes more digestible, and permeated by a delicate 
hay-flavour. 

"Thus the most is made both of the green stuff and of 
the straw, and an excellent food is produced at a trifling 
expense, greatly superior in feeding properties to treacled 
ordinary straw-chafl, which costs more money. The 
great simplicity of preparing and storing straw-chafl, 
and the inexpensiveness of Mr. Jonas' plan, are further 
advantages, which all who consume much straw for feed- 
ing purposes may secure to themselves. 

" The more one looks into this subject, the more one 
becomes impressed with the great practical value of Mr. 
Jonas' plan of preparing a most useful and nuti-itious 
auxiliary food; and it is much to be desired that this 
extremely simple, inexpensive, and in all respects excel- 
lent plan of dealing with straw for feeding purposes may 
be spread throughout the length and breadth of the 
country. " 

In this review of the rise and progress of the use of 
fermented fodder, attention should here be called to the 
system of feeding pulped roots with hay or straw-chaff, 
which was extensively practiced in G-reat Britain from 
about the year 1855, as it practically provided, for winter 
feeding, a supply of succulent food which had many of 
the advantages obtained in the modern system of ensi- 
lage, and probably suggested to Mr. Jonas the method of 
preserving and utilizing straw-chaff by the addition of 
green clover and rye, which furnished the conditions 
required for the melioration of the food by the process of 
fermentation. 

At the suggestion of Mr. Charles Lawrence, the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England offered a prize of three 



28 SlLOS, EKSILAGE ANt) SiLAaE, 

sovereigns ''for the best machine to reduce roots to a 
palp, " which brought out but a single machine for the 
purpose at the Lincoln meeting in 1854. At the Chester 
meeting in 18£8, ''In the class of machines for pulping 
or grating roots, there were no less than twenty-three 
exhibitors, indicating that this description of machine is 
not only highly approved, but is steadily increasing in 
public favor. " * 

In 1859 a manufacturer of pulping machines published 
a pamphlet giving the experience of over 400 farmers in 
feeding pulped roots, in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
In most of these reports the new method of feeding is 
praised in enthusiastic terms, and they resemble in their 
claims the modern testimonials in regard to ensilage, 
particularly as to the larger number of cattle that can be 
kept under this system of feeding. 

As the root crop held an important place in British 
farm practice, the pulping jjrocess was at first adopted 
with the sole purpose of securing a better economy in the 
feeding of roots, but it was soon observed that this was 
one of the least advantages of the system, as the chaffed 
hay and straw, or other coarse fodder, were improved in 
feeding value, by the fermentation that took place when 
mixed with pulped roots. In a supplement to an article 
" On Pulping roots for Cattle food, " f the editor of the 
Journal says, "Statements of experience have been 
received from many who have adopted the practice of 
pulping roots, and they almost universally assert its 
economy and advantage. " 

From the number of published testimonials we copy 
one, as representing a moderate view of the economy 
claimed for the system, by the well-known writer, and 
breeder of Hereford cattle, Mr. T. Duckham, Bay sham 
Court, Herefordshire, who says: "The advantages of 

* Jour. Roy. Agr'l See. 1858, p. 339. 
t Jour. Koy. Agr'l Soc, 1859, p. 458. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 29 

pulping roots for cattle are — 1st, economy of food ; for 
the roots being pulped and mixed with, the chaff either 
from threshing or cut hay or straw, the whole is con- 
sumed without waste, the animals not being able to 
separate the chafE from the pulped roots, as is the case 
when the roots are merely sliced by the common cutter ; 
neither do they waste the fodder as when given without 
being cut. 

"2nd. The use of ordinary hay or straw, after being 
mixed with the pulp for about twelve hours, fermenta- 
tion commences ; and this soon renders the most mouldy 
hay palatable, and animals eat with avidity that which 
they would otherwise reject. 

"This fermentation softens the straw, makes it more 
palatable, and puts it in a state to assimilate more 
readily with the other food ; in this respect I think the 
pulper of great value, particularly upon corn farms where 
large crops of straw are grown, and where there is a 
limited acreage of pasture, as by its use the pastures 
may be grazed, the expensive process of hay making 
reduced, and consequently an increased number of cattle 
kept. I- keep one-third more, giving the young stock a 
small quantity of oil-cake, which I mix with the chaff, 
etc. 

"3d. Choking is utterly impossible, and I have only 
had one case of hove in three years, and that occurred 
when the mixture had not been fermented. 

"4th. There is an advantage in mixing the meal with 
the chaff and pulped roots for fatting animals, as thereby 
they cannot separate it, and the moisture from the 
fermentation softens the meal and insures its thorough 
digestion ; whereas, when given in a dry state without 
any mixture, frequently a great portion passes away in 
the manure. "* 

The usual practice was to put a layer of chaffed hay or 

* Jour. Roy. Agr'l Soc, 1859, p. 463, 



30 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

stravT, or other coarse fodder, about eigM to ten inches 
thick, on the floor of a room of convenient size (10 by 12 
to 16 ft.), and cover this with a layer of pulped roots, 
then another layer of chaff, followed again by the pulped 
roots, and so on, with alternate layers until the mass 
was four or five feet deep. Each layer of chaff was care- 
fully packed, so that the corners were well filled, and the 
thickness of the layer of roots was regulated by the sup- 
ply at command for the season. 

The whole was allowed to remain from twenty-four to 
forty-eight hours before feeding, when the mass was 
found to be thoroughly heated, and the chaff softened 
from the moisture, and mild cooking process. * 

In tracing the history of ensilage, it appears that in 
Germany, previous to 1842, the preservation of green 
fodder in underground silos had been developed into a 
system, wliich, in its methods and results, compares 
favorably with the average practice of the present time. 

The silos were lined with wood, or other materials, 
and the thorough packing of the fodder, the close-fitting 
cover of boards, and the final weighting of the mass with 
eighteen inches of earth, were looked upon as the best 
conditions for securing the desired result. 

It cannot with reason be assumed that this well 
developed system sprung into existence at once, with its 
many well-planned, practical details, and we cannot 
avoid the conclusion that it was preceded by ruder 
methods and successive steps of improvement, extending 
over a number of years. 

In England we also find that fermented fodder had 

* In July, 1868, 1 imported a root pulper from England for the Michigan Agri- 
cultural College, and the system of feeding pulped turnips (Swedes), with chaffed 
straw, cornstalks, and hay, was practiced with the most satisfactory results. 
As our croj) of turnips averaged twenty-five acres each year, our experience was 
on a sufacieut scale to fully demonstrate the great economy of the system when 
roots are grown to any extent for feeding cattle. The pulping system has been 
quite extensively practiced by a number of Canadian farmers of my acquaint- 
ance, aud they were all well pleased with it. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AN'D SILAGE. 31 

been used on an extensive scale, in the form of a mixture 
of green food and chaffed hay or straw as early as 1855, 
and that for several years previous to 1869 it had been 
successfully preserved for winter feeding under essentially 
the same conditions that are now prescribed in the prac- 
tice of ensilage. 

We have, then, conclusive evidence that green fodder 
had been successfully used for winter feeding, and the 
practical principles involved in the process of preserving 
it in silos had been demonstrated long before the system 
was introduced into France (1870), where it received a 
new nomenclature, and was brought to the attention of 
farmers of other countries. 

In France the ensilage of fodder passed rapidly through 
a series of experimental stages, which, although fully 
recorded in the French agricultural papers of the day, 
have been almost entirely ignored by American writers 
who attempted to give an account of the origin and 
history of the process. 

"In 1867, Count Eoederer, a well-known agriculturist 
and breeder of thorough-bred horses, living at Bois- 
Koussel, in the Department of the Orne, began to pre- 
serve green maize in silos for winter use by chopping it 
and mixing it with cut straw and oat cavings, " * which 
in effect was the method practiced by Mr. Jonas, in Eng- 
land, at the same time, to which we have called attention, 
the green maize in France taking the place of green rye 
and tares in England, as a complementary adjunct of the 
straw-chaff. 

The credit of priority in the ensilage of maize, which 
gave rise to the present system of practice, must undoubt- 
edly be awarded to Herr Adolph Eeihlen, a sugar manu- 
facturer and refiner, of Stuttgardt, who demonstrated the 
economy of the process by the ensilage of beet leaves, beet 

* This practice was described in a letter of June IStli, 1870, published in the 
" Journal d'agriculture progressive " the following week. See Jour. Koy. Agr'l 
Soc, 1834:, p. 136, 



32 SILOS, E]S"SILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

root pulp, and maize, on an extensive scale. The beet 
leaves from a crop of 400 acres were preserved in a dozen 
silos, and the beet root pulp from his large sugar factory 
had been stored for winter feeding, in the same way. 
He had lived for a number of years in the Uuited States, 
and on his return to Germany began the cultivation of 
the large dent corn (mais dent de cheval). As this 
"giant maize" did not always ripen in the climate of 
Stuttgardt, he became interested in utilizing it as a for- 
age crop when the season was too short for the grain to- 
mature. 

The first account of his experience was in a letter pub- 
lished in a German paper in 1863, and he gave further 
details in another letter to the same paper, dated Sep- 
tember 23d, 1865. These letters were translated and 
published in the Journal d'agriculture Pratique in 1870, 
forming part of a series of articles on the ensilage of 
green fodder, by M. Vilmorin-Andrieux, who called the 
attention of the farmers of France to the advantages of 
this method of preserving fodder, in connection with the 
growing of forage crops, as a remedy for the effects of 
the prevailing severe drought of that year. * 

From these papers it appears that M. Eeihlen was 
familiar with the sour hay process of Germany, and that 
his success in the ensilage of beet leaves, and beet root 
pulp, for a number of years, led him to try the same 
method with maize, in various stages of ripeness, with 
stalks and ears together, and separately, and also mixed 
with beet root pulp. 

The results obtained in these different methods were 
satisfactory, but he was so well pleased with the ensilage 
of maize, by itself, that he increased the area of corn 

* It is a matter of interest, in the history of ensilage, that the severe drought of 
1870 had much to do with the rapid progress of the system in France from that 
time to the present, while in England the introduction and diif iision of the prac- 
tice was owing to " a succession of wet seasons, which had rendered hay making 
almost impossible in some localities." Jenkins, in Jour. Roy. Agr'l Soc, 1S84, 
p. 136. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 33 

grown, and in 1870, we are informed by M. Vilmorin- 
Andrieux, his silos of maize forage (10 feet deep, and 15 
feet wide at the top, and slightly narrower at the bot- 
tom), which he filled every year, had an aggregate length 
of over 3200 feet, and they all turned out remarkably 
well. 

Having in view the value of the grain, M. Keihlen's 
practice was to allow the corn to stand until the ears 
matured, when they were harvested and stored, and the 
stalks were cut up and placed in the silo. If, however, 
the season was unfavorable, the corn was cut up before 
it matured, and the green ears went with the stalks into 
the silo. In defense of this practice, M. Eeihlen 
remarks, that, after fermentation in the silo, he found that 
the stalks that were allowed to mature their ears were 
excellent feed, that were relished by cattle, and he con- 
siders them but little inferior to the green stalks, with 
their attached ears, treated in the same manner. 

In a communication to the Country Gentleman in 
1876, * I gave the following account of his first experi- 
ment in the ensilage of maize: " Some twenty years ago 
M. Adolf Eeihlen, the owner of a sugar factory near 
Stuttgardt, Germany, had a quantity of Indian corn 
injured by an early frost, so that he was unable to use 
it, as intended, for soiling purposes. Wishing to pre- 
serve it, as nearly as possible in the green state, he dug 
trenches, in which the stalks were placed and covered 
with a layer of soil, in the same manner that potatoes 
and other root crops are buried for winter in this coun- 
try. On opening the trenches, after several months, the 
corn stalks were found to be well preserved, having 
passed through the first stage of fermentation without 
any marked change in color, and with a peculiar, though 
not disagreeable odor. 

''As this preserved fodder was readily eaten by his cat- 

* Co. Gent., 1876, p. 627. 

3 



34 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

tie, M. Eeihlen was so well pleased with his experiment 
that he has continued the same system to the present 
time." In the same article, as examples of the best 
practice in France, and illustrating the change from 
earth pits to silos of masonry, I likewise gave the expe- 
rience of two farmers, as follows : " M. Crevat says, 
encouraged by the success of M. Moreul,* I prepared, in 
1872, three pits in a good soil, with a gravel subsoil, of 
the following dimensions, in round numbers : Length 
at top, 26 feet ; at bottom, 22 feet ; width at top, 10 
feet ; at bottom, 6 1-2 feet ; depth, 6 1-2 feet. Sep- 
tember 12tb, 13th and 14th filled the pits successively 
with corn fodder {geant mais), 6 1-2 to 10 feet high. 
The corn was harvested and left in bundles two or three 
days in a hot sun. 

''The stalks were packed in the pits lengthwise, with 
care, in layers 6 to 8 inches in thickness, with salt at 
the rate of 73 pounds to each pit. On account of the 
scarcity of workmen two days were required to fill each 
pit. In the afternoon filled to the level of the soil, and 
next morning heaped above to the height of 6 or 7 
feet, covering with soil in the afternoon following, to 
the depth of about 2 feet. 

" The first week the settling of the heaps was great 
(at least 6 feet), when they were again covered with 
earth to protect them from the rain, and then left with- 
out other protection. April 15, 1873, a pit was opened. 
The corn was perfectly preserved, of a yellowish color, 
and of a peculiar but not disagreeable odor. 

"A thickness of 1 to 2 inches of the outside was black 
and rotted. In 3 or 4 days 24 head of cattle became 
accustomed to the feed, and ate it readily ; so that at 
the end of 8 days they had consumed at the rate of 880 
pounds per day. 

* We should not fail to notice M. Moreul, of Grignonniere, as the pioneer of the 
new system in France, as he made his first silo In 1870, and continued the prac- 
tice with success, as shown in reports to the Journal d' Agriculture Pratique. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AN^D SILAGE. 35 

" The second silo (pit) was fed after the first, lasting 
until July 31st, when green corn was substituted. The 
third silo (pit) was not opened until April 20, 1874, 
when the interior was perfectly good, but a greater 
thickness of the outside was spoiled." 

"After this experience M. Ore vat made pits of ma- 
sonry of- the following dimensions : Length, 26 feet at 
top, 24 feet at bottom ; width, 8 1-2 feet at top, 6 1-2 
feet at bottom ; depth, 7 1-2 feet, — thus diminishing 
the width and increasing the depth, to save labor in the 
covering and uncovering of earth, and securing more 
completely the exclusion of the atmosphere. 

'* M. Crevat thinks it is not necessary to fill the pits in 
a single day, and prefers to dry the fodder from two to 
three days before putting in the pit. He does not 
believe that it pays to cut the stalks, and thinks the 
mixing with straw, as practiced by many persons, is 
unnecessary. He feeds green stalks from the field from 
July 20 to Oct. 20, and the stalks secured in the stooks 
from Oct. 20, to Jan. 20, following with the fermented 
fodder to July 20, when green stalks are again used." 

" M. Houette has raised Indian corn for fodder for 10 
years, and has practiced the system of ensilage for 4 
years. On account of a wet soil, the earth silos were 
abandoned and silos of masonry were made, consisting 
of three parallel walls with ends, forming 2 silos 16 feet 
Avide, 9 feet high, and 138 feet long ; prefers to cut the 
stalks before putting in the silo ; uses salt at the rate 
of 4 kilogrammes of rock salt to 1,000 kilos, of cut 
stalks, which is equal to about 8 3-4 lbs. of salt to 2,200 
lbs. of stalks. He estimates the cost of harvesting, 
handling, cutting and placing in silo, and covering with 
earth, at 2 francs per 1,000 kilogrammes (2,200 lbs.), 
besides coal burned in engine. He says the maize thus 
preserved is fed until the end of May, without any alter- 
ation from fermentation beyond that taking place dur- 



36 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

ing the two or three days after being put in pit, and he 
has kept it even to the end of July without any change. 
The maize should be as nearly as possible to maturity 
before it is cut for ensilage. When fermented, the ani- 
mals eat it as readily as when green." 

Many similar statements of success in the ensilage of 
maize may be found in the agricultural papers of France 
previous to 1876, but these are sufficient to show that 
the system of M. Eeihlen, as described by M. Vilmorin- 
Andrieux in 1870, was at once received with favor by 
the French farmers, and practically adopted on an ex- 
tensive scale. 

In 1877, M. Auguste Goffart, a gentleman farmer of 
France, published his book on Ensilage, which was 
translated and published in New York in the winter of 
1878-9. As this translation had a wide circulation, 
some 2,000 copies having been sold and given away, it 
has generally been accepted as the standard authority on 
the subject, and it has been repeatedly claimed that M. 
Goffart was the inventor of the system which he so 
enthusiastically advocates. There is, however, nothing 
new in M. GofEart's methods, as the ensilage of maize 
had been extensively practiced in France and Germany 
for several years before the publication of his book, and 
a number of farmers in France were practically familiar 
with ensilage, at least two or three years previous to his 
first successful experiment.* The honors conferred on 

*In a note to his article already referred to Mr. Jenkins says: "Most English 
writers on ensilage during the last two years, have followed several American 
authors in saying that M. Goffart made his first experiment on ensilage with 
Indian corn, in 1852. This is a mistake. What M. Goffart says is, that m 1852 
he began to study, practically, the important problem of the preservation of 
forage (' O'est a probleme de la conservation des fourrages'). He also states (p. 185, 
4:th edition), that uQtil 1873 he had scarcely believed in the possibility of pre- 
serving green maize, but in that year he was very successful, chiefly by accident, 
and he gives (p. 186) the following statement of what he heard his foreman say 
to the workpeople : ' M. Goffart nous fait faire U une sotte hesoqne ; il ferail bien 
mieux de jeter, tout de suite, sou mat's sur la fumier, il fandra tonjours qu' il fnisse 
par la.'" Jour. Koy. Agr'l Soc, 1884, p. 135. " This work that we are doing is 
all foolishness; M. Goffart had better throw his maize into the dung-heap at once, 
because that is where it will go at last." Brown's Tramlation of Goffart, p. 42. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 87 

M. Goffart by agricultural societies in France, and by 
the government, were in recognition of his services in 
popularizing and extending the practice of ensilage, and 
not, as has been claimed, for the discovery that green 
maize could be practically preserved in silos. 

From the prominence given by M. Goffart to his 
expensive silos of masonry, and the heavy weighting of 
the silage, these were claimed by his followers as the 
distinctive features of his system, and they came to be 
quite generally looked upon as the essential conditions 
of success in the practice of ensilage. As silos of wood 
have many advantages over the more expensive struc- 
tures of masonry, and the weighting of the silage has 
been found unnecessary, the question may fairly be 
raised whether the methods of M. Goffart have led to 
any real improvements in the practice of ensilage, aside 
from the wider advertising of this method of preserving 
green fodder, that may be attributed to the extended 
circulation of his book. 

The many favorable reports in regard to the ensilage 
of maize by the farmers of France, led me, in 1875, to 
make experiments in the ensilage of corn fodder, in two 
silos 12 -feet long, and 6 feet wide, and with two similar 
silos of broom-corn seed, with the most satisfactory 
results.* 

Mr. Francis Morris, of Maryland, made a silo in 1876, 
and the results of his experience were published in 1877. 
A number of silos were built in the United States within 
the next three or four years, nearly all of which were 
widely advertised in the agricultural press. After this 
time the practice was rapidly extended, and silos are 
now found in almost every state and territory. 

In July, 1882, the Department of Agriculture at 
Washington published a report on ensilage, which con- 
tained statements of the experience of 91 persons dis- 

*Co. Gent. Oct. 5, 1876, pp. 627-8. 



38 SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

tributed as follows : Maine 4, New Hampshire 2, Yer- 
mont 11, Massachusetts 28, Khode Island 1, Connecticut 
5, New York 31, New Jersey 5, Maryland 2, Virginia 2, 
Kentucky 1, Tennessee 1, North Carolina 1, Wisconsin 
3, Iowa 1, Nebraska 1, Canada 2, — but even at that 
time there were undoubtedly many silos in the country 
that were not included in this enumeration. The capac- 
ity of the silos reported vary from about 8 to 500 tons 
each. 

Unfortunately, some of the first champions of the 
new system of ensilage made such extravagant claims, 
for advertising purposes, in regard to its advantages, 
ignoring the established principles of farm economy, 
and urging the ensilage of green fodder as the only thing 
needed to establish a golden age of agriculture, that 
practical farmers were not disposed to adopt it, as they 
could not readily perceive the substratum of truth under- 
lying the many assertions that were obviously fallacious. 
As the real facts came to be better known the ensilage 
of fodder-corn was rapidly extended, and there are now 
few localities in which the silo is not a familiar append- 
age of the farm that must soon find its proper place in 
a consistent system of farm management. 

As an adjunct or supplement to the ordinary methods 
of practice, the ensilage of green fodder for winter feed- 
ing, or to augment the scanty supply of feed daring a 
prevailing drought, will undoubtedly be fully appre- 
ciated by intelligent farmers who wish to take advantage 
of every available resource of production, but it cannot 
be safely recommended as the only element required to 
insure success in the complex business of farming. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 39 

CHAPTER IV. 

FEKMENTATIOK. 

In the ensilage of green fodder, as in the allied sys- 
tems of preparing cattle feed, to wliich we have called 
attention, various kinds of fermentation take place, to 
a greater or less extent, which have an influence on the 
quality and feeding value of the silage, and from a prac- 
tical stand-point it becomes a matter of the first import- 
ance that the causes and conditions involved in these 
changes in the constitution of the preserved fodder are 
clearly apprehended. The vague and incorrect popular 
notions that prevail in regard to the processes of fer- 
mentation and putrefaction lead to errors in practice, 
from a false interpretation of the results obtained. 

In the first attempts to preserve green fodder in pits, 
and even in the storing of grain, it was naturally assumed 
thab the air was the sole cause of putrefaction and decay, 
and that the exclusion of the air was the essential condi- 
tion for- the preservation of articles of food that were 
observed to decay when exposed to ordinary atmospheric 
conditions. 

This empirical assumption was not only a plausible 
explanation of the observed facts, but it was apparently 
confirmed by the earlier investigations of science relating 
to the phenomena of fermentation. Gay-Lussac proved 
that "perfectly pure grape juice does not ferment unless 
the process has been started by at least temporary con- 
tact with ordinary air." * 

It was found that the solid particles of yeast, a well- 
known active ferment, conld be separated from the 
liquid in which they were diffused, and Liebig claimed 

*Eiicycl. Brit. 9tli Ed., vol. IX, p. 94. 



40 SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

that fermentation was excited by "tlie soluble part of 
ferment/' and he says, however, ''but before it obtains 
this power, the decanted infusion must be allowed to 
cool in contact with the air, and to remain some time 
exposed to its action. When introduced into a solution 
of sugar, in this state, it produces a brisk fermentation ; 
but without previous exposure to the air it manifests no 
such property. The infusion absorbs oxygen during its 
exposure to the air, and carbonic acid may be found in 
it after a short time. Yeast produces fermentation in 
consequence of the progressive decomposition which it 
suffers from the action of air and water."* 

As in the experiments of Gay-Lussac, the facts are 
correctly stated, but in explaining them the mistake is 
made of attributing to the air, and its oxygen, the effects 
produced by the germs of ferments floating in the air, 
which were so minute as to escape attention. But some- 
thing further was needed to round out his hypothesis, 
and in 1848 Liebig published a theory of fermentation, 
which was substantially a revival of that of Willis (1659), 
and Stahl (1697), and a modification of his earlier views. 

It was simply that " yeast, and in general, all animal 
and vegetable matters in a state of putrefaction, will 
communicate to other bodies the conditions of decompo- 
sition in which they are themselves placed ; the motion 
which is given to their own elements by the disturbance 
of equilibrium is also communicated to the elements of 
the bodies which come in contact with them." f 

This theory was generally accepted by chemists as a 
satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of fermenta- 
tion, but in its applications it seems to^have been inter- 
preted in accordance with the earlier views of Liebig, 
from the frequent references to oxygen as an active 

* Chemistry in its applications to Agriculture and Physiology, 1842. N. Y. Ed., 
p. 46. 

t As quoted in Schutzenberger " On Fermentation," p. 40. See also article 
Fermentation, Encycl. Brit., 9th Ed., vol. IX, p. 94. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE A.ND SILAGE. 41 

agent in the changes taking place in all processes of fer- 
mentation and decay. What are now known to be the 
essential factors of fermentation and putrefaction were 
entirely ignored by Liebig ; and yet his theories were 
unquestioned for many years, and even now their influ- 
ence is apparent in the popular literature of agricultural 
science, notwithstanding the repeated disproof of the 
assumptions on which the theory was based, by the 
results of direct experiments, beginning in 1838 and 
continued to the present time. 

More than twenty-five years ago, Pasteur verified the 
results obtained by previous investigations, and supple- 
mented the work by a masterly series of researches 
which proved conclusively that fermentation was a 
biological process, the result of the vital activities of 
living organisms. 

If real progress is made in our knowledge of the com- 
plex changes involved in the ensilage of green fodder, 
the biological theory of fermentation, which can no 
longer be consistently questioned, must be accepted as 
the only safe guide in experimentation, and the obsolete 
theories of Liebig, that were based on assumed data, 
must be entirely discarded. 

A brief historical summary of the progress of discovery 
will enable us to form a correct estimate of the present 
conditions of science relating to the subject, and lead to 
a recognition of the real significance of the biological 
factors of fermentation. 

In 1680 the Dutch naturalist, Leuwenhoek, with 
lenses made by himself, examined yeast and found it 
was composed of minute granules, the real nature of 
which he was unable to determine. 

Fabroni, of Florence, in 1787 again noticed the gran- 
ules of yeast, which he looked upon as a "vegeto-ani- 
mal " substance, and a further step in advance was made 
by Astier in 1813, who claimed that the yeast granules 



42 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

were living organisms that derived their nourislimeiit 
from sugar and thns produced the phenomena of fer- 
mentation. This was in effect the first announcement 
of the true theory of fermentation, but from the prom- 
inence given to the popular chemical hypothesis, it was 
soon overlooked and forgotten. 

In 1838 Cagniard de la Tour (who was afterwards 
elected to succeed Gay-Lussac in the Paris Academy of 
sciences) re-discovered the yeast granules of Leuwen- 
hoek, and found them to be minute plants that were 
multiplied by a process of budding, and these he claimed, 
in the processes of their nutrition, were the cause of fer- 
mentation, as had been asserted by Astier twenty-five 
years before. " The chemists, with Berzelius and Liebig 
at their head, at first lauged this idea to scorn,"* but 
Schultze and Schwann, about the same time (1836-8), 
by the simple device of passing air through red-hot 
tubes, or through sulphuric acid, to destroy any organic 
germs associated with it, without altering its pi-oportion 
of oxygen, proved that it did not excite fermentation 
when introduced into infusions of fermentable materials 
that had previously been boiled, which was of course 
fatal to that part of the chemical theory of fermentation 
which made oxygen an active agent in the process. 

Helmholtz, in 1 843, was equally successful in demon- 
strating the fact that the liquids or the gases of ferment- 
ing materials had no power to excite fermentation. He 
separated putrescent and fermenting liquids from putres- 
cible and fermentable materials bj a simple membrane 
which allowed the fluids and gases to pass through it by 
osmosis, but did not permit the transfer of the solid par- 
ticles from one side to the other. As the process of fer- 
mentation or putrefaction, under these conditions, was 
confined to one side of the membrane, it is evident that 
the cause of fermentation was something that could not 

* Huxley, British Association AdOress, 1870, Nature, 11, 402. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SlLAGH. 43 

pass through the membrane, and that the liquids and 
gases were entirely inert. 

Another assumption of Liebig's theory was thus dis- 
proved by direct experimental evidence, and in the con- 
troversy which was carried on for many years, we find 
repeatedly enacted what Prof. Huxley terms "the 
great tragedy of science — the saying of a beautiful 
hypothesis by an ugly fact." 

These experiments, which in themselves appear to be 
a conclusive refutation of the chemical theory, were 
fully corroborated by the investigations of Schroeder 
and Dusch in 1854, which were conducted on an entirely 
different plan. They found that liquids which were 
particularly liable to take on putrefactive or fermenta- 
tive changes, were preserved indefinitely (after boiling, 
to destroy all contained germs), when freely exposed to 
air that had been filtered through cotton wool. As no 
change in the composition of the air could be produced 
by this process of filtration, aside from the removal of 
the solid particles floating in it, these last must contain 
the efficient causes of fermentation and putrefaction. 

The chemists, however, continued to ignore this accu- 
mulation of evidence, which was in direct conflict with 
Liebig's theory, and it remained for Tyndall and Pasteur 
to clear up all possible doubts, and establish the biolog- 
ical theory of fermentation by a series of experiments 
that are unsurpassed in the histojy of science, for the 
accuracy and skill with which they were planned and 
conducted to answer all objections that had been raised, 
and avoid all possible elements of error. 

Instead of filtering air through cotton, as in the exper- 
iments of Schroeder and Dusch, another method of puri- 
fying it was adopted by Tyndall with quite as satisfac- 
tory results. "A chamber, or case, was constructed 
with a glass front, its top, bottom, back and sides being 
of wood. At the back is a little door which opens and 



44 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



closes on hinges, while into the sides are inserted two 
panes of glass facing each other. The top is perforated 
in the middle by a hole 2 inches in diameter, closed air 
tight by a sheet of India rubber. This sheet is pierced 
in the middle by a pin, and through the pin-hole is 
passed the shank of a long pipette, ending above in a 
small funnel. A circular tin collar, 2 inches in diam- 
eter and 1 1-2 inches deep, surrounds the pipette, the 
space between both being packed with cotton wool 
moistened with glycerine. Thus the pipette, in moving 
up and down, is not only firmly clasped by the India- 
rubber, but it also passes 
through a stuffing-box of 
sticky cotton-wool. The 
width of the aperture 
closed by the India-rubber 
secures the free lateral play 
of the lower end of the 
^ pipette. Into two other 
smaller apertures in the 
top of the chamber are in- 
serted, air-tight, the open 
ends of two narrow tubes, 
intended to connect the 
interior space with the at- 
mospheric. The tubes are 
bent several times up and 
down, so as to intercept 
j,j.^_ 3^ and retain the particles car- 

*"Tyndall's closed chamber for exposing ricd by SUCh f CCblc CUr- 
sterilized putresciWe solutions to the air - pliano-p=! nf tpm- 

without producing putrefaction." rcuts as cuauges 01 tem- 

perature might cause to set in between the outer and the 
inner air. 

" The bottom of the box is pierced with two rows of 
holes, six in a row, in which are fixed, air-tight, twelve 

* " Floating Matter of the Air," p. 132. D. Appleton and Co. 




SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 45 

test tubes, intended to contain the liquid to be exposed 
to the action of the moteless air. 

*' The arrangement is represented in Fig. 3, where w to 
are the side windows (through which a searching beam 
passes from a lamp I across the case) ; p is the pipette, 
and a, b, are the bent tubes connecting the inner and 
outer air. The test tubes passing through the bottom 
of the case are seen below. 

"On the 10th of September, 1875, this case was 
closed. The passage of a concentrated beam across it 
through its two side windows then showed the air within 
it to be laden with floating matter. 

*' On the 13th it was again examined. Before the 
beam entered, and after it quitted the case, its track was 
vivid in the air, but within the case it vanished. Three 
days of quiet had suflBced to cause all the floating mat- 
ter to be deposited on the interior surfaces, where it was 
retained by a coating of glycerine, with which these sur- 
faces had been purposely varnished." * 

After the air was thus purifled by the subsidence of 
the floating particles with which it was contaminated, 
the test tubes were partly filled through the pipette, 
with a variety of solutions that were readily acted upon 
by the micro-organisms of putrefaction, as dilute infu- 
sions of beef and mutton broth, urine, and of different 
vegetables, as turnips, cucumbers, etc., and these were 
sterilized by dipping the test tubes that project below 
the bottom of the case, in a bath of boiling brine for 
five minutes. It will be seen that these putrescible 
materials in the test tubes were in immediate contact 
with the purified air of the chamber, which freely com- 
municated with the external atmosphere through the 
bent tubes at the top of the case. 

Under these conditions the contents of the test tubes 
were kept for months without undergoing any change. 

* " Floating Matter of the Air," pp. 49-51. 



46 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



''In upwards of fifty chambers thus constructed, many 
of them used more than once, it was, without exception, 
proved that a sterilized infusion in contact with air 
shown to be self-cleansed by the luminous beam, re- 
mained sterile. Never, in a single unexplained instance, 
did such an infusion show any signs of life. That the 
observed sterility was not due to any lack of nutritive 
power in the infusion was proved by opening the back 
door and permitting the unclean sed air to enter the 
chamber. The contact of the floating matter with the 
infusions was invariably followed 
by the development of life."* 

The organisms which cause pu- 
trefaction were as readily removed 
from the air by the simple process 
of subsidence, as by filtration 
through cotton, or by passing 
through a red-hot tube, or through 
sulphuric acid. Pasteur practiced 
a still different method, that en- 
abled him to separate the differ- 
ent organisms concerned in fer- 
mentation and putrefaction, and 
cultivate them. SiS " pure breeds" 
for many generations, and thus 
determine the specific physiologi- 
cal action of each species. 



FIG. 4. 

t One of Pasteur's culture flasks, 
giving free access of air through 
the curved tube. 

By means of small glass flasks of different forms, to 
isolate the different ferments, he proved that each spe- 
cies produced a particular form of fermentation, as the 
alcoholic, the lactic, the butyric, the acetic and the 
putrefactive, and this, he claimed, was the result of 
their vital activities in the processes of nutrition. 

Like all living beings, the micro-organisms of fer- 




* Tyndall, 1. c. p. 133. 

t " studies on Fermentation," p. 241. Macmillan & Co., N. Y, 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 47 

mentation require certain conditions of temperature, 
moisture and food supply, for the normal exercise of 
their vital activities ; and each species needs some spe- 
cial adjustment of these conditions to furnish it the best 
facilities for carrying on its processes of nutrition and 
reproduction, and give it the advantage, in the struggle 
for existence with other species. 

The living organisms of fermentation must not, how- 
ever, be looked upon as engaged in the direct manufac- 
ture of some special product that characterizes the kind 
of fermentation with which they are associated. Beer 
yeast, for example, is not directly engaged in making 
alcohol, and the lactic ferment is not directly engaged 
in making lactic acid, although alcohol and lactic acid 
are, respectively, the dominant products resulting from 
the exercise of their physiological activities, when they 
are provided with the food that is best adapted to their 
wants. The fermentable materials constitute their food 
supply, from which they take what is needed for their 
nutrition, and the resulting residue we recognize as the 
product of fermentation. 

When beer yeast feeds on sugar it leaves alcohol as a 
prominent constituent of the residue, which, as a whole, 
will of course vary with the other materials associated 
with the sugar ; the lactic ferment feeds on milk, and 
leaves lactic acid as a characteristic constituent of the 
residue, and the same may be said of each specific fer- 
ment, that it appropriates from its food what is needed 
for its nourishment, and the remains of the feast will 
vary with the character of the food and the organism 
that fed upon it. 

The chemical notions of fermentation, the legitimate 
consequence of Liebig's theory, were, that the saccharine, 
alcoholic, acetic, lactic, butyric and putrefactive fer- 
mentations were successive stages of a consecutive series 
of changes tending to putrefaction as a final result, and 



48 STLOS, E:N SILAGE AND SILAGE. 

each fernieutation was expressed by a chemical formula, 
or equation, indicating the supposed rearrangement of 
the elements inyolved in the process. 

In regard to these equations Pasteur says: *' Orig- 
inally, when fermentations were put amongst the class 
of decompositions by contact-action, it seemed probable, 
and, in fact, was believed, that every fermentation had 
its own well-defined equation, which never varied. In 
the present day, on the contrary, it must be borne in 
mind that the equation of a fermentation varies essen- 
tially with the conditions under which that fermentation 
is accomplished, and that a statement of this equation 
is a problem no less complicated than that in the case 
of the nutrition of a living being. To every fermenta- 
tion may be assigned an equation, in a general sort of a 
way ; an equation, however, which, in numerous points 
of detail, is liable to the thousand variations connected 
with the j^henomena of life. 

*' Moreover, there will be as many distinct fermenta- 
tions brought about by one ferment, as there are ferment- 
able substances capable of supplying the carbon element 
of the food of that same ferment, in the same way that 
the equation of the nutrition of an animal will vary 
with the nature of the food which it consumes. 

"As regards fermentation producing alcohol, which 
may be effected by several different ferments, there will 
be, in the case of a given sugar, as many general equa- 
tions as there are ferments, whether they be ferment- 
cells, properly so called, or cells of the organs of living 
beings functioning as ferments. In the same way the 
equation of nutrition varies in the case of different ani- 
mals nourished on the same food. And it is from the 
same reason that ordinary wort produces such a variety 
of beers when treated with the numerous alcoholic fer- 
ments which we have described. These remarks are 
applicable to all ferments alike ; for instance, butyriQ 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 49 

ferment is capable of producing a host of distinct fer- 
mentations, in consequence of its ability to derive the 
carbonaceous part of its food from very different sub- 
stances, from sugar, or lactic acid, or glycerine, or man- 
nite, and many others. 

"When Ave say that every fermentation has its own 
peculiar ferment, it must be understood that we are 
speaking of the fermentation considered as a whole, in- 
cluding all the accessory products. 

" We do not mean to imply that the ferment in ques- 
tion is not capable of acting on some other fermentable 
substance and giving rise to fermentation of a very dif- 
ferent kind. 

*' Moreover, it is quite erroneous to suppose that the 
presence of a single one of the products of a fermenta- 
tion implies the co-existence of a particular ferment. 
If, for example, we find alcohol among the products of 
a fermentation, or even alcohol and carbonic acid gas 
together, this does not prove that the ferment must be 
an alcoholic ferment, belonging to alcoholic fermentation 
in the strict sense of the term. Nor again, does the 
mere presence of lactic acid necessarily imply the pres- 
ence of lactic ferment. As a matter of fact, differ- 
ent fermentations may give rise to one, or' even several, 
identical products."* 

The products of fermentation will then vary with 
the character of the materials fermented and the 
specific organism that acts upon them. In accept 
ing the physiological theory of fermentation it will 
not be safe to assume that specific micro-organisms are 
the sole factors involved in the process. As a pre- 
liminary step, starch must be changed to sugar, and 
cane sugar must be transformed into grape sugar ; that 
is to say, the true organized ferments cannot act directly 
on starch or cane sugar. This change is brought about 
by zymases, the so-called soluble ferments, 
* 4 

* studies on Fermentation, pp. 276-7, ^ 



50 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

These ''soluble ferments are all derived directly from 
living organisms, in the midst of which they originate,"* 
but they must not be confounded with the true, or organ- 
ized ferments which act in a different manner. 

These zymases appear to be important factors in the 
processes of assimilation and nutrition in all forms of 
vegetable and animal life. 

The starch formed in the green cells of the leaf in 
daylight is transformed into glucose (grape sugar) at 
night, and transferred to the body of the plant, where 
it is stored in the form of starch or cane sugar, as reserve 
materials for the future use of the plant. In the tuber- 
ous roots of beets, and in the stalks of the sugar cane 
and sorghum, for example, cane sugar is stored in con- 
siderable quantities, as reserve material, and starch, in 
the same way, is stored in the tubers of the potato. 
When needed again they are reconverted into glucose, 
by a zymase, elaborated by the living cells of the plant, 
and transported again where they can serve a useful pur- 
pose in its economy. 

The salivary and pancreatic glands of the higher ani- 
mals secrete zymases which convert starch and cane 
sugar into glucose, that is stored up by the liver in the 
form of glycogen, which appears to be reconverted into 
glucose, and distributed through the general circulation 
as the exigences of the system require. The gastric and 
pancreatic secretions likewise contain soluble ferments 
that convert insoluble proteids into soluble and diffusible 
pej)tones, and even in plants peptonizing ferments are 
secreted by the cells to serve a similar purpose. It like- 
wise appears that the elaboration of soluble ferments in 
animals is not confined to the special glandular organs of 
secretion, but the general tissues of the system, as in 
plants, are to a greater or less extent concerned in per- 
forming the same function. It may, in fact, be said 

* Schutzenberger on Fermentatiqp, p. 273. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 51 

that the cells of all living tissues, whether of plants or 
animals, in the exercise of their vital activities elaborate 
zymases as required in the complex metabolism * of the 
processes of nutrition. 

The first step in the fermentation of starch and cane 
sugar, which is the work of a soluble ferment (zymase), 
seems to be identical with the first step, of the germina- 
tion of seeds, of the transformation of the reserve mater- 
ials in the growth of the seed stalk in tuberous roots, and 
of animal digestion. 

. In these nutritive processes of plants and animals, 
heat is liberated as one of the constant results of the 
metabolism of the cells in the exercise of their vital 
activities. The heat developed by plants, as an incident 
of their nutritive processes, is not noticeable under ordi- 
nary conditions, as it is obscured by the constant loss of 

* Under the old physiological theories many of the changes taking place in the 
tissues, or nutritive materials, were erroneously attributed t6 a process of oxida- 
tion. For example, respiration was assumed to be a combustive process of oxida- 
tion, in which the carbonic acid exhaled was formed by the direct union of car- 
bon with the inhaled oxygen. It is now known that the carbonic acid of respira- 
tion is formed in the destructive metamorphoses of the tissues, and not by the 
direct combination of oxygen with carbon, as in ordinary combustion. With the 
progress of physiological knowledge, oxygen is, more and more, looked upon 
as an essential food constituent, required in the constructive processes of the 
tissues, and there is no evidence that destructive oxidation, in the ordinary 
acceptation of the term, occurs, to any considerable extent, in living organisms. 
Metabolism is the term now used to denote the assemblage of vital changes 
involved in the processes of nutrition, whether chemical or physical, without 
attempting to indicate their precise character, or attributing them to the more 
than questionable process of oxidation. "We may picture to ourselves this 
total change which we denote by the term 'metabolism,' as consisting on the one 
hand of a downward series of changes (katabolic changes), a stair of many steps, 
in which more complex bodies are broken down with the setting free of energy 
into simpler and simpler waste bodies, and on the other hand, of an upward 
series of changes (anabolic changes), also a stair of many steps, by which the 
dead food, of varying simplicity or complexity is, with the further assumption 
of vital energy, built up into more and more complex bodies. The summit of 
this double stair we call 'protoplasm.' Whether we have a right to speak of it as 
a single body, in the chemical sense of that word, or as a mixture in some way of 
several bodies, whether we should regard it as the very summit of the double 
stair, or as embracing, as well, the topmost steps on either side, we cannot, at 
present, tell. Even if there be a single substance forming the summit, its exist- 
ence is absolutely temporary ; at one instant it is made, at the next it is unmade. 
Matter which is passing through the phase of life, rolls up the ascending steps to 
the top, and forthwith rolls down on the other side." Foster, Art. Phys. Fncycl. 
Brit. 9th ed. XIX, p. 13. 



52 SILOS, EJSrSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

heat from evaporation. Under special conditions,, where 
the loss from evaporation is reduced to a minimum, and 
the plants are massed in an atmosphere saturated with 
moisture,* the heat evolved becomes sensible and is 
readily detected. 

In the malting of barley a temperature of 110° has 
been observed, and this, too, under conditions that were 
not the best to prevent the loss of heat from evaporation 
and radiation ; and a thermometer placed in the center 
of twelve spadixes of Arum Cordifolium showed a tem- 
perature of 121° when the external air was only 66°. f 
The heat evolved by these flowers was greatest when the 
plants were freely exposed to the air and the exhalation 
of carbonic acid was most active. On the other hand, 
Dutrochet J found that the evolution of heat in green 
growing plants, as in the young twigs and leaves, was 
subject to a diurnal variation, and that it was most 
active in the middle of the day, when the absorption of 
carbonic acid and the exhalation of oxygen was going on 
with the greatest rapidity. From these statements it 
appears that heat is most rapidly developed when the 
metabolism of plant cells is most active, and this is 
indicated by the maximum absorption of carbonic acid 
in the green parts, like the leaves, and the maximum 
exhalation of carbonic acid, in special organs, as the 
flowers and fruits, in which chlorophyll is not perform- 
ing its special role of fixing the carbon of carbonic acid. 

The living cells of various tissues may also, as pointed 
out by Pasteur, perform the function of the true, or 
organized ferments, in producing alcohol, lactic acid, 
etc., but this function is but an incident of their meta- 

* Tyndall's experiments on radiant heat show that pure dry air is transparent 
to heat (i. e., is not readily heated), but that moist air absorbs heat, and is, there- 
fore, readily warmed. When air is nearly saturated with the vapor of water, the 
absorption of heat is ninety times greater than in dry air, Tyndall on Heat, pp. 
398-399, etc. 

t Carpenter's Comp. Phys., pp. 451-452. 

iiAnn. des Sci. Nat., 2d. series, XII, p. 277. Carpenter's Comp. Phys., p. 451. 
Palton's Human Phys., pp. 240-244, 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AHD SILAGE. 



53 



bolism, and not comparable in efficiency or degree with 
the action of the specific organisms of these fermenta- 
tions. 

In the ripening of fruits we have ilhistrations of cell 
metabolism that are of particular interest in this con- 
nectioD. That the changes taking place in the fruit 
cells in the process of ripening are not the result of 
direct oxidation by free atmospheric oxygen, is shown 
by the experiments of Lechartier and Bellamy,* and 
Pasteur, f who found that carbonic acid was exhaled, 
and alcohol formed in fruits placed in closed vessels, in 
an atmosphere of carbonic acid. As no organized alco- 
holic ferments could be found, this fermentation must 
have been produced by the metabolism of the fruit cells 
in the absence of free oxygen. In the maturation of 
fruits, the cell metabolism is exceedingly complex, and 
it cannot be formulated in definite chemical terms. 

Berard J gives the amount of lignine (characteristic 
of wood tissue) and sugar, in 100 parts of fruits, at dif- 
ferent stages of maturation, as follows : 



Fruits. 



Apricots 

Currant's (including seeds). 

Duke cherries 

Green Gage Plums 

Melting Peaches 

Jargonelle Pears 



Lignine 


Suga 


r 


Green 


Ripe 


Green 


Kipe 


3.61 


1.86 


6.64 


16.48 


8.45 


8.01 


0..52 


6.24 


2.44 


1.12 . 


1.12 


18.12 


1.26 


1.11 


17.71 


24.81 


3.01 


1.21 


0.63 


11.61 


3.08 


2.19 


6.45 


11.52 



''The fruit, while still green, it may be remarked, 
decomposes carbonic acid and emits oxygen, like the 
leaves ; but when it ripens, this chemical action on the 
atmosphere alters. In other words, carbonic acid is 
given out, accompanied by a sensible rise in temper- 
ature, while oxygen is absorbed. 

"The fibrous and cellular tissues also diminish as the 

* Compt. rend., 69, p. 466, etc. 

t Compt. rend., 75, pp. 784 and 1054. Pasteur, Studies on Permentation, p. 268. 
t Brown's Manual of Botany, p. 470, refers to Ann. de Chim. et de Phys., Ser. 2, 
XVI, p. 152. 



54 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



sugar increases, the latter substance being partly pro- 
duced at the expense of the former."* M. Cahours,f 
in 1864, observed that the volume of carbonic acid pro- 
duced by fruits in ripening, exceeded the volume of 
oxygen absorbed, so that it was undoubtedly the result 
of cell metabolism, and not of direct oxidation. 

These observations were confirmed by the experiments 
of Lechartier and Bellamy, J who also noticed that the 
development of carbonic acid was not uniformly con- 
stant, but varied widely at different periods, and that 
it was more rapid in the day than at night, which is a 
further indication that it was elaborated as a function of 
the life of the fruit cells, and that the absorbed oxygen 
was utiUzed in these vital activities. But the metabo- 
lism of the cells in ripening fruits is not limited to the 
decrease in woody fibre and the exhalation of carbonic 
acid as the sugar increases. A. Hilger, | in experiments 
on two varieties of grapes (Austrian and Kiesling), found 
that the acid diminished as the sugar increased, in the 
process of ripening, as seen in the following table : 





Sug£ 


ir 
an 


Riesling 
Leaves | Fruity 


Acid 




Austri 


Austrian 
Fruit 


Riesling 


Date 


Leaves | Fruit 


Fruit 


May 19 


0.18 




1.20 








June 27 


1.03 


1.37 


1.00 


1.01 






Vug. 16 


1.08 


1.33 


1.03 


1.23 


4.65 


4.95 


Aug. 22 


1.02 


2.18 


1.05 


1.81 


2.55 


2.47 


Aug. 28 


1.06 


4.25 


1.12 


2.39 


1.27 


1.65 


Sept. 1 


1.08 


2.53 


1.14 


2.58 


1.27 


1.20 


Sept. 12 


1.08 


4.49 


1.14 


2.89 


1.20 


1.19 


Sept. 17 


1.82 


5.33 


1.43 


3.87 


0.67 


1.05 


Sept. 23 


3.53 


7.71 


3.64 


7.70 


O.GO 


0.75 


Oet. 10 


1.33 


9.90 


1.84 


8.64 


0.52 


0.67 


Kov. 10 


0.52 


9.90 


0.72 


8.21 


0.52 


0.75 



Mercadante found that both malic acid and sugar 
increased in plums while green, and that tannin dimin- 
ished, but as the fruit ripened the tannin disappeared, 



♦Brown, 1. c. p. 469. 

t Compt. rend. 69, p. 356, as quoted by Lectiartier and Bellamy. 

tCompt. rend. 69, p. 466, etc. 

IILandw. versucbs-stat. XVII, pp. 245-251. Jour. Chem. Soc, 1875 (28), p. 281. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AJTD SILAGE. 56 

and sugar was formed at the expense of the malic acid, 
as shown in the following tahle : * 



Date 


Sugar 


jVIalic Acid 


June 20tli 




ie.52 


2.76 (p. c. in pulp). 


June 24tli 




1G.54 


2.46 " 


June 30th 




10.78 


2.16 " 


July 4th 




17.05 


1.57 " " 


July 12th 




17.38 


0.82 " 



The real significance of the facts already presented 
cannot be clearly seen if our attention is confined to the 
obvious chemical changes taking place at different stages 
of growth, without taking into consideration the law of 
the conservation of energy in its relations to organic life. 
With the progress of biological science, the metamor- 
phoses of matter in organic processes, which have been 
the almost exclusive subjects of study until within a few 
years past, are coming to be looked upon as of less and 
less importance, while the transformations of energy are 
being recognized as dominant factors in all vital activ- 
ities. Heat and light are the main sources of energy 
concerned in the processes of nutrition and growth, and 
in general terms, the leading phenomena of plant meta- 
bolism may be summarized as follows : In the building 
up of tissues (constructive metabolism), work is per- 
formed and an expenditure of energy is made at the 
expense of the heat and light supplied to the plant. 
Step by step comparatively simple food materials are 
converted into more and more complex organic com- 
pounds, resulting in the formation of living protoplasm, 
an essential constituent of every cell, as the final and 
most complex state of constructive metabolism. 

An expenditure and storing up of energy is involved 
in every step of this process. This stored-up energy is 
spoken of as potential energy, that may afterwards be- 
come active in doing work, or become sensible in the 
form of heat. 

* Jour. Chem. Soc. XXVIII (1875), 904, quoted by Prescott, Mich. Pom. Rep't, 
1877, p. 152. 



66 SILOS, ElfSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

From the complexity and high potential energy of the 
molecules of protoplasm, a reverse process at once begins 
(destructive metabolism), and complex compounds are 
resolved, step by step, into those that are relatively 
simple, and starch, cellulose, and other plant constitu- 
ents are formed, in the retrograde metamorphosis of the 
protoplasm. 

This destructive metabolism is quite as essential to 
the life and well-being of the plant as the parallel con- 
structive process, and the two are simultaneously taking 
place in the normal nutritive changes of every cell. 

The stored-up energy resulting from the cumulative 
effects of constructive metabolism appears as heat in the 
process of destructive metabolism, and when not util- 
ized in work or dissipated by radiation, may be detected 
by the thermometer, as in the ripening of fruits, the 
malting of barley, and in the flowers of the Arum in the 
experiments to which reference has been made. In the 
normal life of plant cells there is, then, an expenditure 
of energy in work, and a storing up of energy in com- 
plex organic substances, which is immediately followed 
by the breaking down of complex molecules, the libera- 
tion of heat, and the elaboration of substances like 
starch, cellulose, various nitrogenous bodies, and zy- 
mases, which can be utilized by the plant, and inter- 
vene between the complex protoplasm on the one hand, 
and the final waste products on the other. 

It is important that we keep in mind the fact that the 
heat resulting from the metabolism of plants and ani- 
mals is evolved in accordance with the law of the con- 
servation of energy which is as strictly applicable in the 
organic kingdom of nature as in the inorganic. Plants 
do not produce heat, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
term, but it is liberated from the stored-up energy of the 
more complex molecules when they are converted into 
simpler compounds, as, for example, when starch is 



SILOS, ENSiLAGE AND SILAGE. 67 

formed from protoplasm. As heat is liberated in the 
manufacture of starch from the more complex molecules 
of protoplasm, it will be seen that starch has less poten- 
tial energy than the protoplasm from which it is formed. 

The stored-up energy of organic substances may also 
be transformed into heat by the process of combustive oxi- 
dation, as well as by the metabolism of the living cells. 
" The heat which is given out by burning the organic 
substance is but the conversion into Idnetie energy of the 
potential energy stored up in the substance. The heat, 
for instance, which is given out bj^ burning wood, or coal, 
represents the kiuetie energy, derived principally from 
the sun's rays, by which were effected the processes of 
constructive metabolism of which the wood, or coal, was 
the product." * 

When a healthy balance is maintained between the con- 
structive and the destructive metabolism of the cell, its 
activities are vigorously carried on, if other conditions are 
favorable ; but with a lowering or loss of cell vitality, an 
invasion by the true, or organic ferments cannot be 
resisted, and these in their turn become the leading 
factors in the changes which follow. And here we have 
a further illustration of the law of the conservation of 
energy. The heat evolved in the processes' of fermenta- 
tion and putrefaction has the same origin as that devel- 
oped in the metabolism of plants and animals. The 
microbes that cause fermentation do not produce the heat 
observed, but they feed upon the fermentable materials, 
and among the results which follow, the stored-up ener- 
gy of these organic substances is liberated in the form of 
heat. It will be seen, moreover, that when this heat is 
not dissipated by conduction or radiation it may be suf- 
ficient to prove fatal to the organisms that are concerned 
in liberating it. 

The phenomena usually included in the general term 

*Encycl. Brit. 9th ed. vol six p. 66. 



68 SILOS, EKSILAGE A2TD SILAGE. 

fermentation may then be considered under two distinct 
heads : 1st, the zymases, or so-called soluble ferments, 
which are elaborated in the exercise of the normal 
functional activity of the living cells of the tissues. 
They " invert " cane sugar and convert it into glucose, — 
change starch into sugar, or like the pancreatic secre- 
tion, change insoluble proteids into soluble and diffusi- 
ble peptones, or in general terms they may be said to 
bring about those changes which facilitate the transfer 
and assimilation of food materials, and according to 
Dumas, they "always sacrifice themselves in the exer- 
cise of their activity." They do not act like the true 
ferments, and they must be looked upon as essential fac- 
tors in the physiological activities of both plants and 
animals. 

3d, The true ferments, which, on tlie other hand, are 
living organisms that increase and grow at the expense 
of the substances fermented, and produce fermentation 
as an incident of their vital processes. 

Pasteur defines the true fermentations as physiological 
activities, ** the direct consequence of the processes of 
nutrition, assimilation and life, when they are carried 
on without the agency of free oxygen," or, ''as a result 
of life without air." The true ferments may be divided 
into two groups : 

1st, The saccharomyces, or budding fungi, of which 
beer yeast may be taken as the type. They are real 
microscopic plants that multiply by budding, and have 
likewise a process of reproduction by spores. The 
prominent members of this group are alcoholic ferments. 

x!d. The so-called schizomycetes, or fission fungi, that 
are perhaps better called microbes, or bacteria.* 

*De Bary, an acknowledged authority on these lower forms of life, says the 
members of this group are not properly fungi, and he prefers to call them Bac- 
teria. He would likewise avoid the use of the term Bacterium as a generic name. 
If, however, Bacterium is retained as the name of a genus, the group will be bet- 
ter designated by the general term Microbes. 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 69 

They multiply by fission, each individual " dividing 
into two similar daughter cells through an unlimited 
number of generations." 

Eeproduction by spores has been observed in many 
species, and it is probable that this process is common 
to all. To this group belong various specific ferments, 
as the lactic, acetic, butyric, etc., and a number of 
forms that produce putrefaction. They are all micro- 
scopic forms, many of them less than 25000 of an inch in 
diameter, and they are, at present, classified from pecul- 
iarities of form.* 

The conditions of temperature, moisture and food 
supply, as already noticed, have a marked influence on 
the vital activities of bacteria, and they will, to a con- 
siderable extent, determine the successful reproduction 
and growth of a particular species, to the exclusion, for 
the time, of other less favored species. In the struggle 
for existence, the individuals that are best adapted to 
the sum of the conditions in which they are placed, will 
have many advantages over their competitors, and this 
will enable them to take the lead in appropriating the 
materials required iii their processes of nutrition, and 
thus become masters of the situation. 

Any change in the surrounding conditions that places 
this favored form at a disadvantage, will tend to check 
its activities, and bring to the front some other form 
that is better adapted to the new conditions. The 
normal activities of a dominant form may prepare the 
way for its own suppression and favor the aggressions of 
its rivals. An exhaustion, or even scarcity, of its appro- 
priate food supply, or the form in which the food is 
furnished, or an accumulation of residues resulting from 

*The globular forms are called Cocci, the smaller ones Micrococci, and the 
larger Macrococci. When grouped in pairs they are DipJococci, and when In 
chains or rows Streptococci. The rod-like forms, if short, have been called Bac- 
teria, and the longer rods Bacilli. Spirally curved forms are Spirilla, SpirocJixtx, 
or Vibrios. 



60 SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

its own processes of nutrition, will serve to check its 
vital powers, and at the same time prove of immediate 
advantage to some other species. 

Many illustrations might be given of the well known 
fact that a repression of the vital powers, and even the 
death of an organism may be caused as a direct result of 
the exercise of its own normal activities. In a confined 
atmosj^here animals are killed by the carbonic acid ex- 
haled in the process of respiration. Yeast is an alcoholic 
ferment, but its activity as a ferment is checked or en- 
tirely suppressed by an accumulation of the alcohol re- 
sulting from its own processes of nutrition. ''The wines 
produced from the rich Juices of Southern grapes always 
contain unfermented sugar," * the alcohol produced be- 
ing sufficient to stop the process of fermentation before 
the sugar is all consumed. 

When lactic acid is allowed to accumulate beyond a 
certain amount, the lactic ferment ceases to jDerform its 
function ; the microbes of nitrification are unable to act 
as ferments in the absence of lime or some other salifi- 
able base to combine with the nitric acid as it is elabo- 
rated, and under such conditions they are superseded 
by other forms that have no such special requirements. 
One ferment may thus succeed another, as the condi- 
tions of life are changed to favor it and restrain the 
activities of its predecessor. The process of putrefaction 
is not a single fermentation produced by any single spe- 
cific form, but an indefinite series of fermentative 
changes brought about by a succession of microbes, 
each of which, in its processes of nutrition, prepares the 
way for those that follow, until, by their combined 
action, the putrefactive materials are reduced to their 
simplest chemical combinations. 

The temperature most favorable for the activity of 
bacteria will vary with the species, the conditions of 

* Encycl. Brit. 9th ed. 1 x p. 94. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 61 

moisture, and the supply of nutritive materials in an 
available form. A temperature of from 60° to 100° F. 
seems to be best for the rapid reproduction and growth 
of most species, while that of 122° to 132° is fatal to the 
acid-producing ferments and to those of putrefaction. 
When perfectly dry, a higher temperature may be borne 
with impunity, but when wet, a considerably lower tem- 
perature, if continued for several hours, will prove fatal. 
In my experiments with the microbes of the acid fer- 
mentations, they have been observed to succumb to a 
temperature of 115°, under what may be considered 
exceptional conditions, but even at lower temperatures 
their vital activities are readily checked and their special 
functions as ferments reduced to a minimum without 
absolutely proving fatal. It is important to clearly dis- 
tinguish the differences in the effects of temperature on 
the spores, or germs, and on the mature bacteria. The 
spores, of species that are readily killed in the mature 
form by a temperature of 122°, may be able to withstand 
a temperature of 212° for several minutes, or under 
special conditions for several hours. 

The intermittent method of heating discovered by 
Prof. Tyndall is a convenient and efficient mode of 
destroying bacteria at comparatively moderate tempera- 
tures.* I have repeatedly succeeded in sterilizing cul- 
ture fluids, which involves, of course, the destruction of 
all mature bacteria and their germs, by raising the tem- 
perature for one minute to 122°, at intervals of about 
tAvelve hours, for a week or ten days. A temperature of 
from 122° to 132°, if frequently repeated, or maintained 
continuously for several days, seems to be quite as effi- 
cient in killing the germs of bacteria as considerably 
higher temperatures for a short time. No arbitrary 
rule can then be laid down as to the ]3recise thermal 
death-point of any particular species, as much will 

♦Floating Matter ia the Air. pp. 210, 337. 



62 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

depend upon the conidtions under which the heat is 
aj)plied. 

From this outline of our present knowledge relating 
to the subject, it must be seen that tlie micro-organisms 
of fermentation and putrefaction cannot be overlooked 
in discussing the practical principles that must guide us 
in the ensilage of green fodder, and that generalizations 
based on observations in which their activities are 
ignored cannot safely be made. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE SILO. 

A silo is, in effect, a tight box or chamber, in which 
green fodder may be stored and preserved. The sides 
must be smooth and vertical, so that the silage may set- 
tle uniformly and freely, and the bottom should be 
water-tight and without drainage. It may be made of 
any form, provided these essentials are secured, but, 
taking everything into consideration, the rectangle will 
be found most satisfactory for the ground plan. 

MATEEIALS. 

Massive and expensive silos of masonry have been 
made by the followers of M. Goffart, and it has been 
claimed that they were essential to the successful ensi- 
lage of green fodder. Others have recommended con- 
crete as the best material that can be used in their con- 
struction. The only valid argument that can be urged 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 63 

in favor of masonry or concrete for the walls of the 
silo is that of durability. On the other hand, it must 
be observed they are good conductors of heat (and frost), 
and this in itself is an objection that more than counter- 
balances any apparent advantages that may otherwise be 
claimed for them. 

From a careful study of the subject and a personal 
examination of the silage in a large number of silos of 
all kinds, I cannot escape the conclusion that, taking 
everything into consideration, wood is the best material 
that can be used in the construction of the silo. As a 
nonconductor of heat, it is far better than masonry-or 
concrete, and in most localities, and perhaps as a gen- 
eral rule, it is the cheapest. 

If reasonable precautions are taken in building, and 
suitable preservatives, like crude petroleum, and roofing 
j)itch, or tar, are judiciously applied, which can be done 
at a comparatively trifling expense, it cannot be objec- 
tionable on the score of durability. The application of 
preservatives will be considered under the head of 
construction. 

FORM AN"D SIZE OF THE SILO. 

The quantity of fodder to be ensilaged, and the num- 
ber of animals it is desirable to provide fee i for, should 
determine the size and general form and proportion of 
the silo. On the start, it may be well to bear in mind 
the fact that in feeding out ensilage, if a large surface 
is exposed to the air for a number of days, it is liable to 
be seeded witli the germs of molds and putrefactive 
bacteria, so that its value as cattle food may be materi- 
ally diminished. 

To obviate this difficulty, it is a common practice to 
cut down the silage in narrow slices, or strips, but in 
this method the wall of silage remains exposed to atmos- 
pheric contamination during the time the strip cut ofE 



64 SILOS, ENSILAGE Al^D SILAGE. 

is being fed out ; and, moreover, this involves an unnec- 
essary expenditure of labor in feeding, particularly in 
cutting down and handling the fodder at a disadvantage. 
It would be better to make the proportions of the silo so 
that, by feeding from one end, or from the entire top 
surface, a fresh layer would be exposed every time the 
animals are fed. On the whole, several small silos will 
be found more convenient, so far as the economy of 
feed and labor is concerned, than one very large one of 
equivalent capacity, and these should be of such propor- 
tions as to require several inches in depth of the exposed 
silage to be removed each time the animals are fed. 

Uniformity in the quality of the feed will thus be 
secured, with a minimum loss of nutritive materials. 
The small silos have also advantages in the process of 
filling, as will be noticed hereafter. The number of 
animals to be fed will thus have an influence in deter- 
mining the dimensions of the silo in transverse section. 

The walls of the silo may be 12, 14 or 16 feet high, 
and it will seldom be advisable to exceed the latter fig- 
ure. Silos with walls from 20 to 30 feet high have been 
made, but without any apparent advantage. 

The weight of a cubic foot of silage will vary with the 
condition of the crop when put into the silo, the depth 
of the silage, and the pressure applied when it is cov- 
ered. From 35 to 50 lbs. per cubic foot will represent 
the range of variation reported, and 40 lbs. may be 
safely assumed as the weight of a cubic foot in approxi- 
mately estimating the storage capacity of the silo. 

It is better to err on the safe side in estimates of the 
amount of feed stored in the silo, when the actual 
weight is not determined at the time of filling. A con- 
siderable settling of the silage takes place after the silo 
is filled, and allowance must be made for this in estimat- 
ing the storage capacity of the silo. 

From the data presented, a silo 12x16 feet should hold 



SILOS, EISrSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 65 

from 46 to 56 tons ; one of 12x24 feet over 80 tons ; one 
of 14x32 feet over 125 tons ; and one of 16x36 feet over 
170 tons. In the reports on feeding silage the amount 
fed to a cow j)er day is usually stated at from 40 to 60 
lbs. when supplemented with other feed, and 50 lbs. per 
day will perhaps fairly rejaresent the average. 

At this rate a cow would consume 1,500 lbs., or three- 
fourths of a ton, in 30 days, and 20 cows would require 
half a ton a day, or 15 tons in 30 days. The 56 tons 
which may be stored in a 12x16 feet silo would therefore 
serve as the silage ration of 20 cows for over 3 1-2 
months. Such calculations, as a matter of course, will 
only serve to indicate a^Dproximately the amount of 
silage that may be fed, under fairly good management, 
and the storage capacity of the silo required for its 
preservation, as much will depend upon the animals to 
which it is fed, the complementary food supply, and 
the system of feeding practiced. 



LOCATION OF THE SILO. 

Much ingenuity has been displayed in building silos, 
under the floor of the stable, in the side of a sloping 
bank, or partly below the level of the stable floor, but 
most of these plans are based on mistaken notions of 
what constitutes economy in the ensilage of green fodder. 
Silos that are below, or partly below the surface of the 
ground, may be easily filled, but the manual labor 
involved in raising the mass of silage to the level of the 
feeding floor is an unanswerable objection to this plan of 
construction. 

As the green fodder, both before and after it is placed 

in the silo, contains a large proportion of water, and is 

therefore heavy to handle, the economy of labor in its 

management is an important consideration, if the largest 

benefit is to be derived from the process. Attention to 
5 



66 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

a few simple propositions will be of material assistance 
in the planning and construction of a silo. 

In the interests of a judicious economy the silo should 
be so placed that it can be conveniently filled, and as 
conveniently emptied, without any unnecessary hand 
labor in the transportation or handling of the silage. 

As the filling of the silo is almost entirely done by 
machinery, under proper management, the last-men- 
tioned consideration should have the most weight in 
determining the plan and location of the silo. It will 
cost less to elevate the cut fodder to the top of a silo 
above ground, by a carrier attached to the cutter, at the 
time of filling, than to raise it by hand a less distance, 
from the pit to the level of the feeding floor, as the 
silage is fed out, even if a windlass or pulley is used to 
save manual labor. As large a proportion of the work 
as possible should be done with a machine, and hand 
labor should be economized as far as practicable. In 
the application of this principle, there can be no doubt 
that the bottom of the silo should be on the same level 
with the feeding floor, and continuous with it, so that 
a truck can be used to distribute the silage with the 
least expenditure of hand labor. The silo may be an 
independent structure or annex to the barn, in immedi- 
ate and convenient proximity to the stables, or it may 
be built inside the barn, in which case a roof would not 
be needed. If the stable accommodations are limited, 
the latter plan would, however, be of questionable econ- 
omy. If the barn is so situated that the silo must be 
built in the side of a sloping bank to secure convenience 
of access from the stables, three plans of construction 
may be suggested : 1st, the lower part of the silo may 
be of masonry, where it is in immediate contact with 
the bank ; or 2d, a retaining wall of masonry may be 
built as a protection to the walls of the silo, which may 
be built of wood inside of, but not in connection with it ; 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 67 

or, 3d, the entire structure may be of wood, if sufficient 
care is taken to prevent decay, and it has strength to 
resist the pressure of the bank of earth. In the latter 
case, hot roofing pitch should be freely used on all of 
the scantling and boards that are below the surface of 
the ground, and the outside sheathing, between the 
studs and the wall of earth, should be of two-inch 
planks, to withstand the external pressure. Large sills 
of timber should not be used, as scantling two inches 
thick will furnish sufficient strength, and they can be 
better saturated with the hot pitch applied for their pro- 
tection. Of these plans, the second, although costing 
somewhat more than the others, has many advantages, 
which, on the whole, should give it the preference. 

When the silo forms part of the original plan of the 
barn and the stables, it will not be difficult to secure an 
arrangement of details that is consistent with the strict- 
est economy in the system of management. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOW TO BUILD A SILO. 

As wooden silos are, on the whole, to be preferred, we 
may proceed to consider some of the leading principles 
involved in their construction, without stopping to give 
directions for the building of silos of masonry or con- 
crete. Aside from the conditions required for the 
preservation of green fodder, the silo should be made so 
that it may be classed among the permanent imj)rove- 
ments of the farm, and every reasonable precaution 



68 SILOS, ElfSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

should be taken in its construction, to insure the essen- 
tial qualities of stability and durability. The least 
expensive structure will not prove to be the cheapest, if 
these indispensable qualities are not secured. 

The decay of a wooden silo does not, as a general rule, 
arise from a necessary and inherent defect in the char- 
acter of the material used, but from the neglect of cer- 
tain principles in the details of construction, which in 
themselves involve but a comparatively slight increase in 
the original cost of the structure. Too often consider- 
able expense is incurred in attempts to make the build- 
ing more durable by devices that in effect are sources 
of weakness, and tend to favor the processes of decay. 

For strength, economy of materials and labor, the 
"balloon frame" has many advantages that recom- 
mend it as the best, in the construction of the silo. 
Persons who are not familiar with the "balloon sys- 
tem " of building are liable to err on the side of excess, 
in the size and number of timbers, and unnecessary 
details are often planned which add to the cost of 
construction, without any compensating advantages. 
Sills of timber are frequently framed together for the 
foundation of the balloon frame, and in many respects 
they are a source of weakness instead of strength. In 
the balloon frame proper, scantling from 2x4 to 2x12 
are all that are needed, and the larger sizes (2x10 and 
2x12) are seldom required. The scantling should all 
have the ends cut square, without any pretence of fram- 
ing, and the junctions should be toe-nailed, or secured 
with spikes. Eound steel nails of all sizes can now be 
bought at nearly the same price per pound as cut nails 
and spikes, and as the steel nails are lighter, the greater 
number in a pound makes them, on the whole, the 
cheapest, and they are also much better for all purposes 
in building a silo. The scantling and boards for the 
walls of the silo should be sound, well seasoned and free 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 69 

from sap-wood. Green lumber should never be used, as 
it is more liable to decay, and, moreover, when the usual 
preservatives, petroleum or roofing pitch, are applied, 
disappointment in the results will probably follow. 
Among the precautions to secure durability, the liberal 
and judicious use of petroleum and roofing pitch or tar, 
may be urged as of the first importance. 

The manner in which these preservatives are applied 
is a matter of no little consequence, if the best results 
are to be obtained. When applied boiling hot to dry, 
seasoned wood, they penetrate the fibres to a consider- 
able depth, and a permanent effect is produced. A 
superficial coat of cold tar will not be found an efficient 
protection to timber, particularly if it is in contact with 
moist earth. A single application of hot roofing pitch 
to a dry, seasoned pine plank, will, however, usually 
penetrate to about the depth of one inch, as may be 
seen on examination of a cross section. If both sides of 
a two-inch plank are thus treated, the wood is practi- 
cally saturated with the pitch, and its durability will be 
increased not only by resisting the ordinary elements of 
decay, but in its wearing qualities when used as a floor.* 
In building a silo the scantling and boards for sheathing 
may be cut of proper length, the ends being square, and 
the hot petroleum or coal tar may then be applied to 



* Mineral pitch and coal tar are refuse products of gas works. A mixture of the 
two is usually made for roofing purposes, and also for making sidewalks, when it 
is known as asphalt. Coal tar is too sticky at ordinary temperatures unless it 
has been boiled, as it should be if used alone, and the pitch, on the other hand, 
from its higher melting point, is liable to get too hard before it can penetrate the 
timber, and thus form a superficial coating. By a judicious mixture of the two 
these extremes are avoided and the most satisfactory results are obtained. In 
heating or boiling them care should be taken to prevent the inflammable vapors 
from coming in contact with the blaze. Crude petroleum, and coal tar too, may 
be used by themselves on the scantling and sheathing boards in the process of 
construction, but on timbers in contact with the ground, and for the inside finish 
of the walls when the silo is complete, a mixture of the tar and pitch will give a 
better body and is therefore to be preferred. A swab, consisting of a suitable 
stick for a handle about three or four feet long, with a strong cloth wound around 
one end and stoutly secured with a cord, will be found the most convenient 
Instrument for applying the hot pitch and petroleum. 



70 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 



both sides and ends of each piece, before it is put m 
place. 

It will be well, however, to remember that timber 
absorbs moisture, and rots more readily at the ends than 
the sides, and care should be taken to cover the ends, 
and also where the timbers are joined, with the preserv- 
ative. To persons not familiar with work of this kind, 
it may appear to be an expensive job to treat all of the. 
lumber of a silo with preservatives in this thorough 
manner, but an extended experience in the use of coal 
tar and pitch in the construction of barns and other 
buildings has satisfied me that it pays to make thor- 
ough work in their application as preservatives of wood- 
work when it is exposed to conditions that are favorable 
to decay. The materials are not expensive, and the 
extra labor involved is not considerable when compared 
with the advantages of a structure that is not liable to 
require expensive repairs in the course of a few years. 

As a further precaution to secure durability a founda- 
tion of masonry or concrete should be laid below frost, and 
carried above the surface high enough to prevent water 




Fig. 5, Section of bottom of silo. E, E, earth; F, F, foundation walls; S S. 
sills; H, H, studs; X, X, anchors for sills; C, C, concrete floor. 

from settling against the wood work. Two or three 
pieces of 2x4 inch scantling one foot long (well coated 
with pitch) may be laid edgewise, at intervals, along the 
middle third of the long side, and also near the middle 
of the end walls, as shown at X, Fig. 5, to serve as 
anchors to the sills to prevent them from spreading. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 71 

The pressure of the silage against the walls of the silo 
should of course be taken into consideration in deciding 
upon the size of the studs required to secure durability. 
From experiments made with the dynanometer, by Prof. 
E. M. Shelton at the Kansas Agricultural College, the 
lateral thrust of the silage in settling is less than it had 
generally been assumed to be. 

At a distance of 19 and 20 feet from the surface, the 
pressure of the silage of corn fodder cut in one-half inch 
lengths, against the side walls, was found not to exceed 
57 lbs. per sc^uare foot. From the data thus furnished 
it will be safe to use 2x4 inch studs for a wall 12 feet 
high ; 2x6 inch studs for a wall 14 feet high, and 2x8 
studs for a wall 16 feet high, if they are in each case 
placed from 16 to 18 inches apart, from center to center, 
and sheathed on the inside with two thicknesses of 
inch boards. The sizes given are in fact consid- 
erably in excess of what is actually required to secure 
stability, if reasonable care is exercised in other details 
of construction. 

The inside sheathing boards should be of uniform 
width (10 to 12 inches), and surface dressed to secure 
uniformity in thickness. The sills, two inches thick 
and of the same width as the studs, are laid on a thin 
bed of cement mortar, and spiked to the anchor blocks 
in the foundation. No framing or lapping of the sills 
is required, but where they abut at the corners or on 
the sides, if the silo is longer than a single scantling, 
they are fastened together by toe-nailing. "When the 
sills are in place, set the end studs (A, A, A, Fig. 6), 
one at a time, flush with the inside of the sill, fasten 
the lower ends by toe-nailing on each side, and keep 
them plumb by suitable stay laths. Then put on the 
bottom board (X, Fig. 6,) of the inside sheathing, with 
the lower edge resting on tlie foundation wall, and nail 
it to both sill and studs to bind all strongly together. 



73 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



m 



Then in the same manner set the studs of the sides 
( B, B, B, Fig. 6), and nail the bottom board II in the 
same way. The position of the corner studs and their 
relation to the sheathing boards is clearly shown in Fig. 
6, the board X being nailed to the side of the stud B, 
while the board II is nailed to the edge of the same stud. 
This simple plan of building the corners gives ample 
strength with the least expenditure of mater- 
ials and labor in the construction. 

When the first layer of the inside sheath- 
ing, marked X and II (Fig. 6), is laid to 
the height of four or five feet, begin again at 
the bottom by putting on a sheet of tarred 
roofing paper, lengthwise, without lapping, 
but with the edges in contact, to completely 
cover the joints between the boards already 
laid, and upon this nail the inner layer of 
boards marked III and IV, Fig. 6. In or- 
der to break joints it will be seen by refer- 
ence to Fig. 5 that the first, or bottom board, 
of one of the layers must be one-half the 
width of the other boards, and it is immater- 
ial in which layer of the sheathing the nar- 
'I' • r\ row board is 

placed. 

After the 
first board of 
the inside 
sheathing is 

nailed on, it will be well to complete the frame by putting 
on the plates. These are two-inch scantling, and like the 
sills, of the same width as the studs, to the top of which 
they are spiked. The plates must run entirely around 
the walls, at the ends as well as the sides. The end 
studs may be two inches longer than the side studs, and 
then the plate on the end will lap over the side plate at 
the corner, to which it is firmly spiked. 



-^ 



^ 



Fig. 6. Plan of silo showing construction of corueis. A., 
A, A, B, B, B, B, studs; X, 11, III, IV, inside slieatliing 
boards. C, corner stud for outside sheathing. 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 73 

The inside sheathing, with its intermediate layer of 
tarred roofing paper, may now be finished, and at the 
top of the wall it should cover the edge of the plate as 
shown in Fig. 7. If the silo is over sixteen feet long the 
plate may be doubled by spiking on another two-inch 
scantling that is two inches wider than the first, so that 
it will cover the top edge of the inside sheathing. 

If the silo is in the barn the outside of the studs need 
not be covered with sheathing ; but if it is an indepen- 
dent structure, the outside sheathing will form a desira- 
ble protection from frost and driving storms. It may be 
of vertical boards with the Joints battened, by toeing 
horizontal laps of 2x4 inch scantling at convenient dis- 
tances between the studs, or, to secure greater strength, 
the horizontal siding with rabbeted edges may be used. 
The corners may be made secure by nailing the siding to 
a 2x4 inch stud, as shown at 0, Fig. 6. 

The air spaces between the studs should never be filled 
with sawdust or other materials, but they should be 
closed in so that they are at least vermin proof. This 
can be done with a little care in construction, and a 
serious annoyance from rats and mice may thus be 
avoided. 

The plate for the roof to rest on should be at least 
three feet above the top of the silo proper, to give head 
room in the work of filling. This can readily be done 
by extending the balloon frame by setting 2x4 or 2x6 
inch studs three feet long ( 0, 0, Fig. 7 ) on the side 
plates of the silo (P, P, Fig. 7), and spiking the roof 
plates (S, 8, ) on the top of them for the rafters to rest 
upon. The end studs of this extension will be nailed at 
the top to the rafters. These studs may be covered on 
the outside with siding, but the inside sheathing may be 
dispensed with. 

If the silo is considerably more than sixteen feet long, 
a tie in the middle may be desirable to prevent any 



'J'4 SlLOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

springing of the side walls. For this purpose a truss of 
the form sketched in Fig. 7 (T, T, T, T, V, V, V, V, 
V) will be less in the way than a tie beam, and quite as 
efficient. It may be made of two 2x8 or 2x10 scantling, 
T, T, T, T, nailed together at the top, to which are 
nailed inch boards, V, V, V, ten or twelve inches wide, 
as ties of the truss. The ends of the truss are toe-nailed 
to the plates P, P, and spiked to the studs 0, 0. A 




HP 

Fig. 7. Form of truss to prevent spreading of the walls, with relations to roof. 
T, T, T, T, 2x10 scantling; V, V, V, V, V, 1x12 boards, forming the truss; N, N, 
studs of silo proper; P, P, main plates; O, O, studs for roof; S, S, upper plates; K, 
R, rafters. 

board on each side may be nailed to this truss and to the 
top of the middle studs 0, 0, as a tie to the upper, or 
roof plates S, S. 

The bottom of the silo, seen in outline section in Fig. 
5, may be finished by firmly packing the earth, E, E, 
and covering with a few inches of concrete, C, C. 

The concrete is not absolutely necessary and is often 
omitted when the bottom is clay that can be puddled and 
packed. A pitched plank fioor would have advantages 
as a non-conductor of heat, and it can readily be laid 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



'i'5 



water tight in a thin bed of cement mortar, and spiked 
to ribs of 2x4 scantling bedded in the concrete. 

The general plan of the doors is indicated in the dia- 
gram. Fig. 8. The large door, B, in the gable to receive 
the carrier from the cutting machine in filling, needs no 
description. Similar doors on each side, above the walls 
of the silo proper, will be found convenient for admitting 
light when filling the silo, and at other times as required. 

They may be hinged at the 
top and fastened at the bot- 
tom with a hook and staple. 

The long door. A, in the 
wall of the silo, to give access 
to the silage in feeding out, 
should be wide enough to 
admit a truck (in the form 
of an oblong box on three 
wheels, two of them under 
one end and one at the other), 
and it should extend from the 
sill to within two and one 
half or three feet of the top 

^^^^®«^ ""hrtor is, in efleot, 

Fig. 8. Diagram of end elevation, . <• 1 1 • • i 

showing plan of doors. but a SCCtlOU 01 the lUSlde 

sheathing, with its middle layer of tarred roofing paper, 
that can be removed in pieces, but which, when in place, 
protects the silage as completely from atmospheric con- 
taminations as any other portion of the walls. 

When setting the studs for the frame, place two of 
the end studs the proper distance apart to form the 
jambs of the doorway. On the outer side of each, spike 
a 2x4 inch scantling flush with the inner edge, to form a 
wide bearing for the laps of the inside sheathing, and the 
pieces cut from it to form the door. When putting on the 
inside sheathing, cut from each board of the first layer. 




76 SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

and opposite the doorway, a piece three inches longer than 
the distance between the stnds forming the door jambs, 
and number and set them aside to form part of the 
door. 

From the inner layer of sheathing cut out in like man- 
ner pieces for the door, but two inches longer than were 
cut from the first layer. When filling the silo, the door 
can be laid in sections, three or four feet high at a time, 
as needed, by beginning at the bottom and putting each 
board into the space from which it was cut, with hori- 
zontal sheets of tarred roofing paper between the two 
layers of boards, to completely cover all joints and make 
a practically airtight surface. 

As the door boards are put in they may be held in 
place, until the silage is banked against them, by a small 
wedge at one end. When ready to begin feeding the 
silage, the top of the door can be readily reached from 
the inside, and the boards removed in sections and laid 
aside, with the roofing paper, for future use. As the 
silage is fed out additional boards can be taken out until 
the bottom of the silo is reached. This form of door 
will be found convenient in feeding from the entire top 
surface of the silage, or, still better, if the silo is longer 
than broad, the feeding may be from the end in oblique 
sections, and the covering will then be removed from the 
top as required. 

There is no apparent advantage to be derived from 
partitions in silos, aud they are objectionable on many 
accounts. If they are made they should be permanent 
and made as tight as the side walls. 

Planks will spring if used for partitions, and a studded 
wall, sheathed on both sides, will alone be found satis- 
factory. A door through the partition may be made on 
the same plan as at the end described above. 

In building a silo on the plan here presented, skilled 
labor is not required, as anyone who understands the use 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AN'D SILAGE. 77 

of the square and saw can do the work, if he has clear 
ideas of what he wishes to accomplish and works on a 
definite plan. The aim should be to build a tight box, 
or chamber, open at the top, with double walls that are 
proof against vermin, and the whole made durable by the 
liberal application of the coal tar compounds. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

FODDER CROPS FOR EN^SILAGB. 

All green crops like clover, lucerne, rye-grass, etc., 
etc., may be preserved in the silo, but the American 
cereal, Indian corn, has many advantages in this climate 
that will undoubtedly make it the staple crop for ensi- 
lage throughout the United States. From the large 
yield per acre under favorable conditions, and its value 
as cattle food when jjroperly grown and managed, it can 
have no successful competitor as a green forage crop, on 
a large majority of the farms in this country. 

As the principles involved in the ensilage of all fodder 
crops are the same, we will confine our attention to the 
ensilage of maize, without stopping to notice the details 
of special treatment required in the ensilage of crops of 
subordinate interest. Too often mistakes are made in 
the cultivation of fodder corn which seriously detract 
from its feeding value. 

The conflicting opinions expressed in the agricultural 
papers in regard to the value of fodder corn as feed for 
cows giving milk, furnish an illustration of the import- 
ance of directing our attention to methods of cultivation, 



78 SILOS, E]!5"SILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

and conditions of growth, as factors that may determine 
its value as cattle food. It has been asserted by some 
farmers that a diminished flow of milk followed the full 
feeding of fodder corn, while others consistently claim 
that it is one of the best feeds for dairy stock. The 
obvious explanation of these conflicting statements should 
be of interest to every farmer. 

THICK SEEDING. 

From its peculiar habits of growth Indian corn, as a 
fodder crop, must vary in feeding quality with the con- 
ditions that prevail in its cultivation. When too thickly 
planted the stalks are bleached and slender, and the 
leaves are pale and lacking in vigor, and although a con- 
siderable yield in gross weight may be obtained under 
such conditions, water forms too large a proportion of 
the constituents of the crop, and there is consequently a 
corresponding deficiency in nutritive materials. The 
general sickly habit of growth is an indication of defec- 
tive nutrition and a suppression of the processes of 
assimilation. 

Some of the leading facts in vegetable physiology have 
a practical significance in this connection, which should 
not be disregarded. The green coloring matter of plants 
(chlorophyll) is the active and essential agent in the 
assimilation of carbon, and the formation of starch, and 
the reserve materials that are stored up in the body of 
the plant. Carbon, which usually constitutes about 
one-half of the weight of the dry substance of most 
plants, is derived from the carbonic acid of the atmos- 
phere, and can only be assimilated by the chloryphyll in 
the presence of light. "When the amount of light is 
small, even these assimilating organs which contain 
chlorophyll lose the power of producing organic sub- 
stances out of water and carbon dioxide with the assist- 
ance of other food materials." 



SILOS, EJSrSILAGE AND SILAGE. 79 

The effect of what physiologists call assimilation is to 
increase the dry substance of the plant, and conse- 
quently its feeding value. Defective assimilation, then, 
means deficiency in dry substance and diminished value 
as food, Indian corn, a semi-tropical plant, with its 
wealth of foliage needs an abundance of sunlight and air 
for its vigorous growth and development. When crowd- 
ed in dense masses, as we see it in thickly planted fodder 
corn, the upper leaves only receive sufficient light to 
enable them to carry on the active assimilation of carbon, 
while the pale lower leaves and stalks are thickly shaded 
and unable to perform their share of the work in the 
constructive processes of the plant. 

The yellow leaves and delicate, spindling stalks, with- 
out a rudiment of ears, furnish conclusive evidence that 
the plants are suffering from inanition, and that insuf- 
ficient supplies of nutritive materials, in proper form 
and under proper conditions, have been provided for 
their perfect development and maturity. 

Dr. E. H Jenkins, in a table on the " Composition of 
American Feeding Stuffs," * gives the results of seventy- 
five American analyses of maize fodder, the dry matter 
of which varies from 7.1 to 48.5 per cent ; and in fifty- 
nine analyses of maize fodder ensilaged, the dry substance 
ranges from 13.0 to 35.6 per cent. 

As these differences evidently exceed any reasonable 
margin of error in analysis, they must be attributed to 
differences in varieties ; to the stage of maturity at time 
of harvest ; or, to methods of cultivation ; but unfortu- 
nately we have not the data for determining the influence 
of each of these factors on the results obtained. 

Ifc is evident, however, that fodder corn varies widely 
in the amount of dry substance it contains, and that 
silage must vary in value with the quality of the crops 
ensilaged, so that no definite statements can be predi- 

* Connecticut Agr'l Ex. St. Rep't 1880, p. 40, 



80 SILOS, ENSILAGE AN"D SILAGE. 

cated in regard to average nutritive values. Some of the 
objections to the thick seeding of fodder corn have 
apparently been observed by farmers, as instead of the 
one, two or three bushels of seed per acre of a few years 
ago, we now oftener see recommendations of the more 
consistent and rational quantities of but eight to ten 
quarts per acre. This is progress in the right direction 
and in harmony with the well-known laws of vegetable 
nutrition and growth. 

As seen from the published analysis quoted above, the 
amount of water in fodder corn is liable to wide varia- 
tions, and in all experiments with maize as a field crop, 
the amount of dry substance obtained per acre, in 
connection with the variety and quantity of the seed 
planted, and the conditions under which the crop is 
raised, should be clearly and fully stated, as they are 
matters of the first importance in the interpretation of 
results. In a succulent, large-stalked plant, like maize, 
a statement of gross weights only may be misleading in 
discussing nutritive values. 

When immature fodder corn is ensilaged, whether from 
thick seeding or premature harvesting, the excess of 
water it contains is a real source of annoyance and prob- 
able loss. From the weight of the superincumbent mass 
the juice is pressed out of the silage in the lower half of 
the silo, and there is towards the bottom an accumula- 
tion of liquid containing more or less of the food 
constituents of the silage, which cannot be disposed of to 
advantage. 

In a number of cases of this kind, to which my atten- 
tion has been called, the accumulation of liquids in the 
bottom of the silo has been attributed to the soaking in 
of water from the outside, and the real cause of the dif- 
ficulty was not suspected. The crops ensilaged should 
contain no more water than can be retained in the cells 
of the plant under the conditions in which they are 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 81 

placed, and this means that a certain stage of maturity 
should be reached before the crop is har\rested. It is 
true that immature fodder corn may be partly dried in 
the field after it is cut up, before putting it into the silo, 
but this obviates but part of the difficulty ; the deficiency 
in dry substance still remains. The excess of water in 
the immature plant is exhaled from the leaves in the 
process of maturation as the chlorophyll of the leaves 
assimilates carbon, and reserve materials, like starch and 
its allies, are stored up to increase the percentage of dry 
substance. Nature's method of drying immature suc- 
culent vegetation will be found the most profitable, and 
we need only aid her by furnishing suitable conditions 
for the performance of her work. 

The reported yields of fodder corn, under good man- 
agement, vary from about 15 to 30 tons per acre, and if 
yields of less than ten tons are mentioned, some excuse 
is presented of unfavorable conditions for the crop, or, 
the effects of a bad season. Claims of 40 to 50 tons per 
acre are frequently made, and yields of even 80 to 90 
tons have been reported, but these exceptional yields are 
evidently enthusiastic estimates that need verification. 
There can be no doubt that Indian corn will yield a 
greater aggregate of valuable cattle-food per acre, under 
good conditions of farm management, than any other 
crop, and exaggerated claims are not needed to lead to its 
general recognition as the King of the cereals. 

VARIETIES OF MAIZE POR EISTSILAGE. 

A great number of varieties of maize have been recom- 
mended as the best for a fodder crop, but allowance must 
be made, in many cases, for a bias of judgment, where 
the sale of seed is the object. 

From the wide geographical range of the crop in 
America, and the different climatic conditions under 
which it is successfully cultivated, it will be seen that 
6 



82 SILOS, EJS'SILAGE AND SILAGE. 

the best variety in one locality may not succeed in a large 
proportion of cases in other localities. It has been the 
fashion to grow Southern varieties at the North for fod- 
der corn, from the imposing appearance of the crop, and 
the large gross weights, in yield, that are obtained. 

To what extent this practice is desirable we have not 
as yet the data to determine, as quality is quite as 
important as quantity, and the real value of the crop will 
largely depend on the amount of dry substance obtained 
on a given area, and the labor required in its production 
and management. 

Any increase in the gross weight of the crop that arises 
from a larger proportion of water, without any marked 
increase of dry substance, adds to the cost of labor in 
harvesting and storing it, without any real compensating 
advantages. Among the varieties frequently mentioned 
in the current agricultural papers. Southern white and 
yellow dent ; Southern sweet ; and the B. and "W. have 
perhaps been the most popular, and in many localities, 
it is possible that either one of them may be better, on 
the whole, than some of the smaller sorts, but it will not 
be safe to urge their exclusive use throughout the range 
in which fodder corn may be profitably raised. 

Some general propositions may be of assistance in 
making a choice of a variety for fodder corn. In the 
first place it will be generally admitted that it should be 
so well adapted to the locality that it will be likely to 
mature before it is threatened with early frosts. In 
the absence of other defects, an exuberant leafy growth 
with stalks of small or medium size may be desirable. A 
variety that is prolific in grain formation may likewise 
have advantages in feeding quality. At the extreme 
North, the medium, or smaller varieties will, undoubt- 
edly, give better results, on the whole, than the larger 
Southern varieties that require a long season to mature. 
It seems to be generally admitted that the sweet 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 83 

varieties have no marked advantages, as the yield is 
usually less than that of other sorts, and there is no 
evidence that they have a decidedly higher nutritive 
value. The system of cultivation practiced is probably 
of greater importance, in most cases, than the selection 
of the variety to be grown, provided it is adapted to the 
locality. 

Fodder corn should never be sowed broadcast, but 
planted in drills, or hills, at such a distance apart as 
will admit of convenient cultivation. 

The soil should be in high condition and carefully 
prepared for seeding. The smoothing harrow may be 
profitably used, to check the growth of weeds, until the 
plants are several inches high, and thorough after-culti- 
vation should follow. As to the distance between the 
rows, no definite rule can be prescribed, as the larger 
varieties require more room than the smaller sorts, but 
all need nearly as much space as when grown as a field 
crop with grain as the leading object. One of the most 
satisfactory crops I have raised was of medium Western 
dent corn, in drills four feet apart, and yielding, in gross 
weight, but twenty tons per acre, but this included 
eighty bushels of well matured shelled corn that gave 
the crop a high feeding value. 

It appears to me to be decidedly the best practice to 
plant corn for a fodder crop, and for ensilage, so that it 
will have abundant room and light for the vigorous 
growth of the lower leaves and the development and 
approximate maturity of the ears. The ensilage of such 
a crop, under proper conditions, cannot fail to give satis- 
faction as to the quantity and quality of the feed obtained 
from a given area. 

The importance of maturity, or a close approximation 
to maturity, in the plants fed to animals, will be best 
seen by some practical applications of the principles of 
physiological science to the intimate relations of plant 



84 SILOS, ElfTSILAGE AKD SILAGE. 

and animal life. From the farmer's standpoint his field 
crops may be looked upon as machines for making food 
for animals from inorganic materials which the animals 
could not otherwise make use of in their nutritive pro- 
cesses. 

In order to obtain the largest possible returns from 
these living plant machines, they must be made to work 
to their full capacity, under conditions that are the most 
fayorable for the exercise of their special endowments. 
They must have an abundant supply of the raw materials 
required in making organic substances, and of energy, in 
the form of light, and heat from the sun, to be expended 
in the work of construction they have to perform. Any 
deficiency in either of these essentials (inorganic raw 
materials, and energy) must detract from their efficiency 
as machines in the work they have to do. 

The resulting products of these plant machines, which 
we call organic substances, as starch, sugar, fat, proteids, 
etc., are not only food for animals in the sense that they 
furnish materials for building animal tissues, but, what 
is quite as important, they are also stores of potential 
energy that is liberated and made active in doing work in 
the constructive processes of the animal economy. 

One of the indications that these plant machines have 
performed the full measure of useful work they are capa- 
ble of doing, is the store of reserve materials provided for 
future seed formation, as in the bulbs of our root crops, 
or the actual formation of seeds, as in the cereals, to 
provide for the future reproduction of similar machines. 
In other words, seed formation, or provisions for seed for- 
mation, marks the summit or limits of the profitable 
work which plants can do in the manufacture of food for 
animals ; and the farmer will find his interests are best 
subserved by keeping up, or allowing these activities to 
continue, until the limit is at least nearly reached. Im- 
maturity in plants, therefore, implies unfinished, imper- 



SILOS, EKSILAGE AND SILAGE. 85 

feet work in the construction of organic substances, and 
in the storing up of energy, and a corresponding 
deficiency in the supplies of nutritive materials furnished 
for the food of animals. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FILLING- THE SILO. 

When the crop has reached the proper stage of matu- 
rity for harvesting, the work of filling the silo may 
begin. As green fodder is heavy to handle, strict econ- 
omy should be practiced in the labor expended in 
harvesting the crop and filling the silo, to reduce the 
cost of the silage to a minimum. Eeaping machines 
have been successfully used in harvesting, and it is 
claimed that they can be made to do the work well, by 
cutting but one row at a time, even when the crop is a 
heavy one. Taking the wear and tear of the machine 
into account, and especially with the larger varieties of 
fodder corn, cutting by hand will, perhaps, be found ' 
quite as economical in the long run, particularly if the 
crop is a reasonably heavy one. In hauling from the 
field to the silo, two or three wagons, and one or two 
teams, according to the distance of the haul, will be 
found convenient, but no arbitrary rule can be laid down 
in regard to the details of such work, on account of 
differences in the conditions, in each particular case, and 
the farmer must plan the work for himself to make every 
step count as far as possible. 



86 SILOS, EKSILAGIE AKD SlLAGE. 

The wilting, and partial drying, or curing of the 
fodder, in the field before hauling to the silo, is fre- 
quently recommended. As a saving in the weight of the 
fodder in the subsequent handling, this may be a decided 
advantage, but the utilities of the practice must depend 
largely on the condition of the crop as to maturity, and 
the amount of water it contains, and it will hardly be 
safe to formulate any definite method of procedure, 
where good judgment is required in deciding upon the 
best course under the special conditions presented in 
each case. The fact that the fodder is not necessarily 
injured by leaving it in the field, in bunches as cut up, 
for a short time, or even several days in favorable 
weather, is, however, of some practical importance, as 
considerable latitude may be admissible in economizing 
labor, in adjusting the relations of the cutting and haul- 
ing gangs of workmen. 

The fodder may be preserved by packing it in the silo 
as it comes from the field, but the practice is not to be 
recommended, as the whole stalks are not conveniently 
handled, or packed, in the silo. It will be far better to 
cut the fodder in about half-inch lengths with a suitable 
machine, rigged with a carrier to deliver the cut fodder 
over the top of the silo. On the whole, this will be 
found a labor-saving operation, and, moreover, the cut 
fodder will pack to better advantage in completely 
filling the silo, and it is also more conveniently fed out. 
The fodder cutter should be sufiiciently strong to cut the 
large stalks with their attached ears without danger of 
getting out of repair, and the carrier should deliver the 
cut fodder, as near as may be, at the top and middle of 
the silo. 

Some differences of opinion have been expressed as to 
the length of cut that is most desirable, but in a large 
proportion of cases, the range of variation reported is 
from three-eighths to three-fourths of an inch, and 



SlliOS, ENSILAGE AKD SILAGE. S*? 

very few longer cuts are mentioned. The size of the 
stalks may be taken into account in deciding upon the 
length of cut it will be desirable to make. With small 
stalks a longer cut may be admissible, but there appears 
to be no good reason for making a shorter cut than one- 
half inch, under any conditions. It is perhaps not 
necessary to cut the fodder for ensilage as short as may 
be advisable with dry fodder. 

Until within a few years past there has been a prevail- 
ing notion that a silo must be rapidly filled, in a single 
day if possible, and that a large expenditure of labor was 
required in treading and packing the fodder as it was 
put in, and to make assurance doubly sure, even horses 
and mules have been used to tramp down the fodder as 
the silo was being filled. The next assumed element of 
success was to put on a tight cover of planks as soon as 
the silo was full> and load it with heavy weights at the 
rate of from 100 to 200 or more pounds per square foot. 

A better system now prevails, and these expensive 
details which were believed to be of paramount import- 
ance in the ensilage of green fodder, are known to be 
useless expenditures of labor. 

Several years ago, after making a series of experiments 
on the thermal death-point * of the bacteria of fermenta- 
tion, I ventured to make the suggestion that- the rapid 
filling and packing of the silo was unnecessary, and that 
with slow filling, without treading down the fodder, the 
temperature of the mass would rise to a point that is 
fatal to the bacteria that cause the acid fermentations, 
and that ''sweet ensilage" might thus be made. These 
statements were made in lectures at several different 
places, and I was informed by a number of persons, that 
they could now understand the results of their experience 
the preceding year, as they had unintentionally made 
sweet ensilage of superior quality, as the result of acci- 

* For the relations of temperature to tlie activities of bacteria see pp. 60-61. 



OO SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

dental and unavoidable delays, of several days, in the 
filling of their silos, so that the silage became ''quite 
hot" before it was covered and weighted. Their fears 
that the silage was entirely spoiled were not realized, as 
it proved to be the best they had ever made. Soon after- 
wards I learned that Mr. George Fry, Chobham, England, 
had made sweet ensilage by the process of slow filling, 
when the temperature in the silo exceeded 122°. In the 
ensilage of clover and rye-grass, he observed temperatures 
of 135° to 158°. 

On the publication of these suggestions, with the cor- 
roborative evidence I had collected in regard to the 
practicability of the method, I was assailed on all sides, 
in the agricultural papers of the day, and many theoreti- 
cal objections were urged that were assumed to conclu- 
sively disprove the data on which this new departure in 
ensilage was founded. At the present time, however, my 
method of filling the silo, to avoid objectionable acidity, 
has been quite generally adopted, and the favorable 
reports received in regard to the practice, are the best 
answer to former criticisms. 

Quite recently it has been discovered that the weights, 
and even the tight plank covers that were formerly con- 
sidered of prime importance, can be dispensed with to 
advantage. In a recent communication from Mr. John 
Gould of Ohio, who has made extended observations 
among the silos at the West, he informs me that weighus 
are now seldom used, and that but about one-half of the 
silos are covered with boards or planks, and that the 
number of these is rapidly diminishing. Tarred roofing 
paper covered with a layer of straw or coarse hay from 
twelve to sixteen inches in depth is frequently the only 
protection to the top of the silo, while many omit the 
paper altogether and only rely upon the simple covering 
of straw or marsh hay, which, they claim, from their 
experience, is quite as efficient in protecting and preserv- 
ing the silage as the more expensive methods. 



SILOS, E:N SILAGE AKD SILAGE. 89 

In the evolution of the silo, and the practice of ensi- 
lage, remarkable progress has been made, and the evident 
tendency is towards simplicity in all directions, and a 
consequent saving of labor, which of course diminishes 
the cost of silage. 

The filling of the silo is no longer a task that must be 
hurried to completion in one or two days, at any cost, 
and at the sacrifice of all other interests, but it comes in 
as part of the regular routine of farm work, and requires 
no extraordinary addition to the usual working force of 
the farm. 

The usual practice, in filling the silo to avoid acid 
fermentation, is to put in but two and one-half or three 
feet in depth of the fodder in a single day, and this is 
allowed to heat until a temperature of about 125° is 
secured. Another similar layer is then added and left 
to heat in the same manner, and this process is repeated 
until the silo is full. From one to three days, or even 
more, may intervene between the filling in of any two 
contiguous layers, according to the condition of the 
fodder and the progress of the heating process. Each 
layer is carefully packed at the edges and comers to 
completely fill all of the space, but any tramping beyond 
what is required for this purpose is avoided. 

When there are two or more silos, the filling may 
alternate from one to the other, a layer of fodder being 
put into one while the others are heating, and with a 
single long silo,- without a partition, the two ends may 
be treated as separate silos and alternately filled in the 
same way. 

As the heat developed in the silage may be lost by 
conduction and radiation, it is found that a temperature 
of from 122° to 125° is not as readily obtained at the 
bottom and corners of the silo, and along the walls, 
especially if they are of masonry or concrete. 

This difficulty is obviated, to some extent, by care in 



90 SlLOS, EKSILAGE AND SiLAGB. 

the management of the fodder as the silo is filled. The 
fodder put in the first day is not leveled at once, but 
allowed to remain in a loose pile in the middle of the 
silo until it is well heated and the fodder for the next 
layer is ready to put in. The hot silage is then leveled 
and packed at the corners and immediately covered with 
the fresh fodder of the next layer. With a similar pur- 
pose in view, the last load or two of the fodder of each 
layer is left in a pile in the middle of the silo to heat 
until ready to fill in the next layer. In this way hot 
silage is provided in the middle of the silo, to fill the 
corners where the heat is likely to be deficient. When 
the silo is full the last layer is treated in the same way, 
and when the desired temperature is developed the sur- 
face is leveled and a cover of tarred paper and cut straw 
or coarse hay, as described above, is finally added. This 
cover should be well packed at the sides and corners, 
and a few loose boards may be laid on, to keep it in 
place. 

This simple method of covering was naturally sug- 
gested by the well-known fact that a few inches in depth 
of the surface of the silage was often moldy and spoiled, 
and the obvious remedy for this difficulty was the addi- 
tion of a stratum of straw or other coarse materials for 
the molds to grow on, and thus protect the layer of 
silage beneath from their action. This covering of 
straw is soon saturated with moisture from the heated 
mass under it, and is thus made more compact and 
impervious to atmospheric influences. 

Aside from the check given to the acid ferments, the 
slow method of filling the silo has advantages which 
commend it to popular favor. The work can be carried 
on leisurely and economically with the ordinary farm 
force, and the entire storage capacity of the silo can be 
utilized. Under the old method of rapid filling, thor- 
ough packing and heavy weights, the space left at the 



SILOS, EKS1LA6E AND SILAGE. dl 

top of the silo from the settling of the silage could not 
be filled with fresh fodder without taking off, and replac- 
ing, the heavily weighted cover, which involved a con- 
siderable expenditure of labor. In the improved method 
of filling, the settling of the silage, favored by the high 
temperature, goes on gradually and continuously, as the 
fodder is put in, and there is nothing to prevent succes- 
sive additions of fresh fodder until the silo is completely 
filled. 

It will be seen that all details of the slow filling pro- 
cess are managed to favor the development of a tempera- 
ture of at least 132° in all parts of the silo, to keep in 
check, or diminish, the activity of the bacteria of the 
acid fermentations. 

The cause of the temperature developed in the silage 
has not been definitely ascertained, but from the facts 
presented in the chapter on Fermentation, it may, with 
apparent good reasons, be attributed to the normal 
activities of the living plant cells in the maturation of 
their contents. There is, at least, no evidence that it is 
caused by a true fermentation, or by any direct process 
of oxidation. There is, likevnse, no evidence to warrant 
the assumption that the high temperature involves a 
direct loss of nutritive materials, as it is well known 
that heat is evolved in the normal metabolism of plant 
cells in the elaboration of organic substances. That the 
metabolism of the cells of maize goes on after the plant 
is cut up, is shown in the maturation of the grain in the 
ear while attached to the stalks that are cut up before 
the ears are glazed, and we cannot doubt that heat is 
liberated in this process. This metabolism of the cells 
must continue, in the presence of suflBcient moisture, as 
long as they retain their vitality. 

It must be admitted that the chemical changes taking 
place in the ensilage of green fodder have not, as yet, 
been determined, and we have much to learn in regard 



92 SILOS, EKSILAGE AN"D SILAGE. 

to the real transformations of matter and energy in solved 
in the process, under different conditions. In investiga- 
tions relating to the chemistry of the silo, the biological 
factors concerned in the metamorphoses of matter and 
energy cannot be ignored, and any generalizations that 
are based on inferences from Liebig's obsolete theories of 
fermentation can only mislead, by obscuring the funda- 
mental elements of the problems it is proposed to solve. 
The uniformly favorable reports that have been made by 
those who have tried the new method of filling the silo, 
both as to the quality of the silage and the certainty and 
uniformity of the results obtained, show that the process 
has merits that are recognized by practical men as a 
decided improvement on former methods. 

It has been proposed to revive the practice of M. 
Eeihlen, of harvesting the ears of corn when the crop 
is sufficiently matured, and let them cure in the husks, 
while the fodder is ensilaged by itself. There may be 
advantages in particular cases that might Justify the 
expenditure of the additional labor required in this plan, 
but as a rule it will probably be better economy to run 
the stalks and ears together through the feed cutter and 
ensilage the crop as a whole. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ElfSILAGE AKD FAEM ECONOMY. 

The advantages that may be derived from the ensilage 
of green fodder have, undoubtedly, been exaggerated by 
its enthusiastic advocates, and on the other hand, the 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AJ^D SILAGE. 93 

opponents of the practice have failed to recognize its 
intrinsic merits in their efforts to show that it involves 
needless expense and a loss of nutritive materials. 

Notwithstanding the reaction from over-estimates of 
its value, and the many objections that have been urged 
against it, the ensilage of fodder corn is rapidly extend- 
ing, and as the economies of the system come to be bet- 
ter appreciated, the indications are that it will be quite 
generally adopted on farms where the feeding of live 
stock is made a prominent interest. 

The silo cannot be looked upon as the only essential 
element of success in farm practice, or as an inexhaust- 
ible mine of wealth that may be drawn upon at pleasure, 
without an equivalent rendered. The farmer can only 
take from it the food constituents he has put in, and 
the benefits he may derive from the ensilage of the fod- 
der will largely depend on other considerations than the 
one of mere nutritive values. Experiments have been 
made to test the relative feeding value of dry fodder 
corn and the same fodder ensilaged, with results that 
are not decisive, as the' problem is an exceedingly com- 
plex one that cannot be solved by a few simple tests 
with a small number of animals. Such investigations 
have a theoretical interest, and should be encouraged, 
but from the very limits of their scope they cannot set- 
tle the practical economy of ensilaged fodder. The 
form in which a given food is supplied to animals, and 
even its palatableness, may have a more decided influ- 
ence in determining its nutritive value, than slight dif- 
ferences in chemical composition. The same food may 
give different results when fed to different animals, and 
the benefit derived from it by the same animal may vary 
widely at different times, so that extreme caution should 
be exercised in interpreting the results of feeding exper- 
iments, and in the generalizations based upon them. 

From a chemical point of view, there is, beyond ques- 



94 SILOS, ENSILAGE AlfTD SILAGE. 

tion, a loss of nutritiye materials in curing corn fodder 
by the ordinary process of drying, and there is also a 
similar loss in the ensilage of the same fodder, but the 
differences in these losses are comparatively unimport- 
ant in deciding upon the relative practical economy of 
the two methods. 

The demand for a supply of succulent food in the sys- 
tem of feeding, the labor involved in harvesting, storing 
and feeding out of the crop, and the waste of the fodder 
in feeding under ordinary conditions of management, 
must all be taken into the account in striking a balance 
to determine the best paying method. 

It is generally admitted that some form of succulent 
food is a desirable addition to the ordinary winter rations 
of live stock, and the question arises as to the best and 
cheapest method of providing it. The English farmer 
looks upon his root crop as an indispensable adjunct of 
his food supply for farm stock, but in this country, for 
many reasons that need not be stated, the raising of root 
crops will not, in all probability, be extensively prac- 
ticed. The steaming of feed of all kinds has been urged 
as the true solution of the problem, but this method 
has failed to gain the approval of a large majority of 
farmers, and where it has been tried on a considerable 
scale, it is apparently on the decline. 

The ensilage of fodder corn has been found a conven- 
ient and economical method of providing a supply of 
succulent food during, the winter months, or in seasons 
of drought, and when properly conducted, as a part of 
a consistent system of farm management, it has given 
the most satisfactory results, and, in American farm 
practice, at least, it must almost entirely supersede the 
raising of root crops, or the steaming of fodder. Maize, 
from its many valuable qualities, is conceded to be the 
most important farm crop in the United States, and its 
preservation in the form of green winter food will tend 



SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 95 

to add to the deservedly high estimation in which it is 
held as the main stay of American agriculture. 

The necessary expense involved in the ensilage of fod- 
der corn has been very much overrated by those who 
have not made a trial of it. With the comparatively 
cheap silos of wood, and discarding the heavy weights 
that were formerly used, it is believed that fodder corn 
can be put in the silo, and ^lally fed out, at less expense 
than it can be cured in stocks in the field, hauled to the 
barn and run through the feed cutter, and fed to ani- 
mals, and in the winter management of stock the ensi- 
laged fodder has the advantage of convenience, and 
decidedly less waste in feeding. Hon. Hiram Smith of 
Wisconsin makes the statement that, by actual trial, he 
found that a load of fodder corn could be run through the 
feed cutter, elevated more than twenty feet, and depos- 
ited in the silo, in seven to eight minutes' less time than 
was required to set it up in stooks in the field. 

There is, however, another consideration that must 
have weight in estimating the economy of the silo. 
Fodder corn is rapidly growing in popular favor for 
summer feed, and it would be more extensively culti- 
vated for winter feeding were it not for the difiiculty of 
curing it, particularly in wet seasons, and its liability to 
injury when stored in the barn or in stack, from the 
readiness with which it absorbs moisture. Ensilaged 
fodder, on the other hand, is exempt from the influence 
of the atmospheric conditions that are so annoying in 
the management of dry fodder, and it is always ready 
for use when wanted. The relations of the silo to the 
general system of management suggest many questions 
of practical interest that the farmer must carefully con- 
sider. Every interest of the farm has its influence, for 
good or ill, on every other interest, and the aim should 
be to make each supplement the others and thus aid in 
increasing the aggregate of profits, In a large proper- 



96 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 

tion of cases the net proceeds of the farm will depena 
more upon the harmonious adjustment of many details 
than on the disproportionate development of any special 
interest. 

Animal husbandry, in one form or another, must 
become a prominent feature of American farming, under 
existing conditions of production, to secure the largest 
immediate profits, and at ^he same time conserve the 
elements of fertility as a resource for the crops of the 
future. In the feeding of animals the direct returns 
in animal products should not be the only consideration, 
as the value of the residues in the form of manure must 
have an important influence on the ultimate sum of the 
results of the system of management. 

The ensilage of green fodder may be practiced with 
advantage if it is made to supplement other interests of 
the farm, and is not allowed to become the sole reliance, 
or the dominant factor in production. To successfully 
meet the world-wide competition in agricultural products 
that is forced upon the farmer by the rapid development 
of the means of transportation, and cannot be evaded, 
every resource must be utilized, under a well-planned 
system, and the economies of the farm must be studied 
from every standpoint. 

With the introduction of the silo should come a sys- 
tematic readjustment and modification of many details 
of the ordinary routine of practice, and the adoption of 
improved methods in every department and interest of 
the farm. No arbitrary, empirical rules can be formu- 
lated in regard to the minutias of farm management, but 
good judgment and a thorough knowledge of practical 
farm economy will be required in adjusting the various 
interests to the prescribed conditions of the locality, in 
order to realize the largest net returns from the aggre- 
gate results. 



INDEX. 

Acid Fermentation of Silage . . . , . . .89 

Alcoholic Fermentation 48 

Animal Husbandry • ... 96 

Asphalt 69 

Bacteria 58 

Balloon Frame 68 

Biological Changes in Ensilage . . . . , .8 

" Brown Hay " 18 

Budding Fungi . . .58 

Cagniard de la Tour 42 

Carbonic Acid Exhaled by Plants 53 

Chemical Theory of Fermentation 47 

Classification of Ferments 58 

Classification of Microbes 59 

Coal Tar 69 

Cost of Silage 88 

Crevat, M, on Ensilage 34 

Crops preserved in Silos 9 

Cultivation of Fodder Corn 83 

Curing of Fodder Corn 95 

Death-point of Ferments 61 

Definitions of Terms 8 

Doors of Silo . .75 

Dry Substance of Fodder Corn 80 

Duckham, on Pulped Roots 38 

Energy a Biological Factor 55 

Ensilage Defined 8 



98 INDEX. 

Ensilage and Farm Economy 92 

Ensilage in France 32 , 

Ensilage, Eeport of Department of Agriculture . . 37 

Ensilage, First Experiments with in U. S 37 

Ensilage of maize by M, Reihlen 31-33 

Equations of Fermentation 48 . 

Farm Economy and Ensilage 92 

Farm Management .96 

Feeding Value of Silage 93 

Fermentation . . .,.,... 39 

Fermentation, Cause of 47 

Fermentation, Early Theories 40 

Fermented Straw Chaflf 25 

Filling the Silo . .85 

" Fission Fungi " 58 

Fodder Crops for Ensilage 77 

Foundation of Silo 70 

Gay-Lussac on Fermentation . 40 

Goffart, Auguste, Book on Ensilage 36 

Harvesting Fodder Corn 85 

Heat Developed in Silage 89-91 

Heat of Fermentation 57 

Heat of Plants and Animals 51-56 

Hehnholtz, Experiments by 42 

Houette, M, Silos of 35 

Intermittent and Continuous Heating 61 

Johnston, Prof. J. F. W., on Green Feed .... 19 

Leaves Preserved in Silos in Italy 18 

Liebig's Theories of Fermentation . . . . . 47 

Light Essential to Plant Growth 78 

Maize for Ensilage 77 

Maturity of Fodder Corn 83 

Metabolism 51 

Mineral Pitch 69 

Moulds on Surface of Silage 90 

Partitions in Silos 76 

Pasteur's Culture Flasks 46 

Pasteur on Fermentation 41-48 

Petroleum to Preserve Wood . . . . " . . 69 
Physiology of Nutrition in Plants ...... 78 



INDEX. 99 

Potential Energy 55 

Preservatives for Wood 63 

Pressure of Silage on Walls of Silo 71 

Pulped Roots 28' 

Putrefaction, Process of 60 

Putrefaction, not Caused by Air . . . ' . . .46 

Reihlen, Adolph, First Ensilage of Maize .... 31 

Relations of Plants and Animals 84 

Reproduction of Microbes 59 

Ripening of Fruits ....'.... 53 

Roof of Silo 74 

Roots Pulped and Fermented 28 

Saccharomyces 58 

Schizomycetes . 58 

Schultze and Schwann, Discoveries 42 

Schroeder and Dusch, Exp. by 43 

Science and Art, Relations of 7 

Silage Defined ......... 8 

Silage, Weight of 64 

Silo . 8-62 

Silo, Construction of 67 

Silo, Form and Size of . .63 

Silo, Location of 65 

Silos for Preserving Green Fodder 18 

Silos for Preserving Indian Corn in America . . .17 

Silos for Storing Grain 9 

Silos of Concrete 62 

Silos of Masonry • . . .62 

Silos of M. Reihlen 33 

Silos of Wood 63 

Soluble Ferments 50 

"Sour Hay" 18 

Specific Ferments 59 

Steaming of Feed 94 

Straw Chaff, Fermented 25 

Struggle for Existence 59 

Sugar Formed in Fruits 54 

" Sweet Ensilage " • 87 

Temperature Favorable for Bacteria 60 

Thermal Death-point of Bacteria 61 

Thick Seeding 78 

Truss as a Tie ... 74 



100 INDEX. 

Tyndall's Culture Chamber 44 

Varieties of Corn for Ensilage 81-82 

Vilmorin-Andrieux, Ensilage in France . . . .32 

WaUsofSilo 71 

Water in Fodder Corn 79 

Water in Silo 80 

Weight of Silage 64 

Weights and Cover of Silo 88 

Yeast Granules, Early Discoveries 41 

Zymases , . 50-58 



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